Biography
Dawn Bounds has established herself as a leader and a changemaker in the field of youth mental health. She leads the Centering Youth & Families for Empowerment and Resilience (CYFER) Lab where she mentors UCI Susan & Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences students to serve as health coaches for adversity-impacted youth and their caregivers through her community-engaged study, Garnering Resilience in Traumatized Youth and Families (GRIT). Bounds created GRIT for pediatric providers to refer their patients after screening for adverse childhood experiences and to stem Orange County’s crisis-level shortage of mental health care providers. Her program of research is focused on digital mental health promotion and the prevention of risk behaviors in adversity-impacted youth. Her extensive experience working with marginalized youth and their families in a variety of settings (e.g., juvenile detention, youth homeless shelters, school-based health centers) fuels her passion to amplify youth voices in her health equity focused program of research.
Research Interests
Marginalized youth, adolescence, risk, resilience, commercial sexual exploitation, social media, mental health, integrative health, wearable and biofeedback technology, community based participatory research
Education
PhD, Rush University, 2015
MS, Rush University, 2004, Nursing (Psych-Mental Health NP)
BS, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1999, Nursing
Honors and Awards
- 2023 UCI Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research
- 2023 Dean’s Honoree Teaching Excellence Award
- 2023 UCI Excellence in Pedagogical Development Award Nominee
- 2022 Fellow, American Academy of Nursing
- 2022-2025 Betty Irene Moore Fellowship for Nurse Leaders and Innovators
- 2021-2023 NIH-NICHD Loan Repayment Program
- 2021 UCI Research Associate’s Athalie R. Clarke Research Achievement Award in Nursing
- 2020 – 2022 UCI Chancellor’s Inclusive Excellence Award
- 2019 Rush University College of Nursing’s Research MVP
- 2018-29 Cohn Family Foundation Research Fellowship
- 2011-2015 SAMHSA/American Nurses Association Minority Fellow (2T06SM060559-04)
