Students Accepted into CUNY Startups Accelerator

In a recent competition, one of the winning teams from the CUNY Hack-a-thon has been accepted into the CUNY Startups Accelerator. They will receive initial funding to work during the summer and will be mentored by professionals to further develop and implement their business idea. The winning team members are Remel Kabir, Alester Lewis, Megan Kale, Bryan Charlie, and Angelo Zamudio, all seniors in the Computer Science Department. Angelo currently works at the Tech Incubator. The other four students were Tech Talent Pipeline residents for Spring 2017.

Mental health care is usually out of reach for low-income and disadvantaged people, which has made the Queens College Psychological Center (QCPC) an indispensable safety net for underserved children and adults. Most recently, for instance, it has been offering pro bono psychological services to traumatized immigrants and refugees as part of Professor Valentina Nikulina’s Youth in Transition Program.
 
As a community mental health clinic, research center, and training clinic for the college’s PhD Program in Clinical Psychology and its Psychology Department, QCPC provides professional help to both the public and CUNY students regardless of their ability to pay, though certain vulnerable patients have priority status--especially survivors of domestic violence, undocumented immigrant families, and children struggling with behavioral problems and learning needs in under-resourced city schools.

QCPC’s hybrid mission as an academic training and mental health clinic is governed by a commitment to excellent, evidence-based services. Provided mainly by doctoral candidates under the supervision of licensed faculty, these services range from evaluation and testing to therapy and other counseling. As director and psychology professor Yvette Caro says, “QCPC provides effective, ethical, culturally responsive, compassionate, and accessible care to those who otherwise would lack access to affordable mental health treatment.”