Assistant Professor (tenure-track)
Ph.D. (2016), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
MHS (2010), Johns Hopkins School of Public Health

---

Doctoral Program Affiliation

Counseling Psychology

---

Website

Aya Research Team

---

 

Research Interests

Dr. Jones' program of research principally seeks to challenge, clarify and correct the narrative concerning risk and resilience for Black youth and their families. He strives to better understand the interplay between race-related risk (e.g., racial discrimination, racism-related stress) and protective factors (e.g., racial identity, racial socialization, Africentricity) that influence Black youth psychological wellbeing. To that end, his investigations seek to move beyond understanding that racial/ethnic factors are protective, to unearthing the mechanisms and processes that explain how this protection is achieved. He employs both quantitative and qualitative methodologies—including utilizing mixed methods—and his strengths-based approach is grounded in cultural ecological models, acknowledging the role of individual and broader contextual (e.g., microsystem, macrosystem) factors. Lastly, as a scientist-practitioner, his research endeavors to answer these questions in the service of identifying avenues for prevention and intervention efforts.

---

Areas of Expertise

• Black youth and family psychosocial wellbeing
• Racism-related stress and coping processes
• Racial-ethnic protective factors (racial socialization, racial identity, Africentric worldview)
• Couples therapy

---

Select Publications

Jones, S.C.T. & Neblett, E.W. (2018). Black parenting couples’ discussions of the racial socialization process: Occurrence and effectiveness. Journal of Child and Family Studies. 1-15.

Anderson, R. E., Jones, S. C. T., Anyiwo, N., McKenny, M., & Gaylord-Harden, N. (in press). What’s race got to do with it? The contribution of racial socialization to Black adolescent coping. Journal of Research on Adolescence. Online First

Jones, S.C.T., & Neblett, E.W. (2017). Future directions in research on racism-related stress and racial-ethnic protective factors for Black youth. Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, 46(5), 754-766. doi: 10.1080/15374416.2016.1146991

Hoggard, L. S., Jones, S. C., & Sellers, R. M. (2017). Racial Cues and Racial Identity: Implications for How African Americans Experience and Respond to Racial Discrimination. Journal of Black Psychology, 43(4), 409-432.

Jones, S. C.T., & Neblett, E. W. (2016). Racial–ethnic protective factors and mechanisms in psychosocial prevention and intervention programs for Black youth. Clinical child and family psychology review, 19(2), 134-161.

Jones, S.C.T., Lee, D.B., Gaskin, A.L., & Neblett, E.W. (2014). Emotional response profiles to racial discrimination: Does racial identity predict affective patterns? Journal of Black Psychology, 40(4), 344-358. doi:10.1177/0095798413488628

---

Recent Grants

Black Family Racial Socialization Project: A mixed methods, multimodal exploration of racial socialization processes in the 21st century. National Science Foundation Social, Behavioral, and Economic (SBE) Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (SMA-1606869) – 2016-present, Co-Principal Investigator (Howard Stevenson), Total Costs: $204,800.

---

Recent Awards

• Recipient, Extramural Loan Repayment Program, National Institutes of Health-Health Disparities, 2017-2019
• Postdoctoral Research Fellow, National Science Foundation, 2016-2018
• Fellow, Ford Foundation, 2012-2015 (predoctoral) 2015-2016 (dissertation)