Amy Nitza
Executive Director, Institute for Disaster Mental Health
Executive Director of the Institute for Disaster Mental Health
Amy Nitza, Ph.D., is the Executive Director of the Institute for Disaster Mental Health at SUNY New Paltz, where she also directs the Advanced Certificate in Trauma and Disaster Mental Health program and serves as Affiliate Faculty in the Department of Counselor Education.
Nitza is a psychologist who specializes in providing mental health training in academic and non-academic settings both nationally and internationally, with an emphasis on disaster mental health and trauma recovery.
As a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Botswana, she trained mental health and school counselors and studied the use of group counseling interventions in HIV/AIDS prevention among adolescents. She has collaborated with the University of Notre Dame in Haiti to develop trauma-related interventions for children in domestic servitude, and to provide training for teachers in dealing with traumatized children in the classroom. She has also collaborated with UNICEF USA to develop and implement a program in Puerto Rico providing mental health support for children and teachers impacted by Hurricane Maria, earthquakes and the COVID-19 pandemic. She directs numerous other grant-funded projects including from the New York State Office of Victim Services and New York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services.
Nitza has provided training at the national level to federal and non-profit agencies including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Service Employees International Union. She has provided direct service to survivors of numerous disasters including Hurricanes Sally, Dorian, Harvey, and Maria, the Creek Fire in California, the grocery store shooting in Colorado, and the earthquakes in Haiti and Puerto Rico.
She is the author and editor of numerous publications, including the recent book “Disaster Mental Health Case Studies: Lessons Learned from Counseling in Chaos.” She is a Past President and Fellow of the Association for Specialists in Group Work, and currently serves as President of the Society for Group Psychology and Group Psychotherapy (Division 49) of the American Psychological Association, which also awarded her the 2019 Excellence in Teaching of Group Dynamics award.
Nitza holds a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from Indiana University, and previously served as Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Professional Studies at Indiana University Purdue University Fort Wayne.
