Jennifer Nicholas

Jennifer Nicholas is a fourth year PhD candidate in sociology pursuing a dissertation investigating power in intra-institutional dynamics between the clinical, nonprofits, and digital spaces treating youth mental health crises. Her dissertation seeks to identify the ways that these institutions may co-construct access to and understandings of mental healthcare for US youth in crisis along lines of structural inequality, with a specific focus on the ways digital technologies have disrupted dynamics between the traditional clinical and nonprofit institutions. Following a robust career in K-12 teaching and administration, her prior research identified the effects of recent anti-queer legislation in Florida on staff mental health and school culture.