Aída Teresa Mencía Ripley is an academic from the Dominican Republic. She was UNESCO Chair on Social and Academic Inclusion for People with Disabilities and Special Education Needs at UNIBE from 2013 to 2017. She is currently the Dean of Research at Universidad Iberoamericana of the Dominican Republic. She was born in Santo Domingo and raised in New York City. She is the daughter of Aída Ripley Gómez and Rafael Mencía Ochoa. She is the niece of artist Geo Ripley. Her paternal grandfather was Dominican diplomat Rafael Mencía Lister.
Education and career
Mencía-Ripley graduated Summa Cum Laude from St. John's University with a B.A. in psychology. She earned an M.A. from the Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science of the New School for Social Research. She went on to obtain a Ph.D. from St. John's University in clinical psychology. She is a member of the American Psychological Association, The Interamerican Psychology Society, the Dominican College of Psychologists, and the Young Scientist Chapter of the Dominican Academy of Sciences. She is also a member of the Comité Dominicano Barón Pierre de Coubertin. Her main areas of research are gender and health, clinical psychology, psychometrics, and psychology of language. For her published research she has won the 2017 José Salazar Award for best research paper in Revista Interamericana de Psicología She is an advocate for inclusive education in the Dominican Republic. Her efforts as dean have also focused on supporting research initiatives that address stigma and access to care for people living with HIV/AIDS in the Dominican Republic. She has also devoted considerable efforts to promote ethical and culturally respectful research conducted in developing countries paying special attention to intersectional issues of gender, identity, sexual orientation, and ethnicity. As Dean of Research at UNIBE, she has steered the initiatives that led to the creation of UNIBE´s research infrastructure, including UNIBE's Institute for Tropical Medicine and Global Health and the Center for Research in Biomaterials and Dentistry.
Works and publications
Some publications of Mencía Ripley are:
Brondolo, E., Wellington, R., Brady, N., Mencía-Ripley, A., Thompson, S., Cassells, A., et al.. Racism and coping in a community sample of Black and Latino adults. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 31, S162.
Denton, E., Mencía-Ripley, A., Ullah, J., Brondolo, E., Cassells, A., Cubbin, C. & Tobin, J.. Demographic variations in exposure to ethnicity-related maltreatment. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 29, S136.
Brondolo, E., Grantham, K., Karlin, W., Taravella, J., Mencía Ripley, A., Schwartz, J.E., et al.. Trait hostility and ambulatory blood pressure among traffic enforcement agents: The effects of stressful social interactions. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 14, 110-121.
Mencía Ripley, A. & Guerrero Martínez, S.. Características de los pacientes con trastornos relacionados al abuso de sustancias en un hospital dominicano. Revista Electrónica Medicina, Salud y Sociedad, 2 .
Mencía Ripley, A., Fernández Melo, J., Mora, L., McDermutt, W., Thurston-Snoha, B., & Romero, P.. Pilot study of a translation and cultural adaptation of the Anger Disorders Scale: Short Version. Humanities and Social Sciences Review, 1, 219-225.
Mencía-Ripley, A. & Vargas Caminero, Y.. Abuso de sustancias en estudiantes universitarios dominicanos. Revista Electrónica Medicina, Salud y Sociedad, 4 .
Mencía-Ripley, A., Schwartz, J., & Brondolo, E.. Gender identity, interpersonal interactions, and ambulatory blood pressure. Interamerican Psychology Journal, 49 , 261-271.
Thomas, T.M., Schanche Hodge, F., Kotkin-Jaszi, S., & Mencía-Ripley, A.. Stress and coping among college students in the Dominican Republic.Californian Journal of Health Promotion, 15, 78-84.
Mencía-Ripley, A.. Aceptación de la violencia de género en docentes de escuelas públicas. Revista Caribeña de Investigación Educativa, 4, 81-91. https://doi.org/10.32541/recie.2020.v4i1.pp81-91
