Alicia Chatterjee, PhD, LSW

Alicia Chatterjee is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Edmund W. Gordon Institute for Advanced Study at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research critically explores the political history of mental health, drawing together comparative race studies, psychoanalysis, and disability studies. Grounded in decolonial methodology and historical analysis, her current book manuscript traces the emergence of clinical social work in the United States at the turn of the 20th century alongside global histories of race, exploring entanglements between racial dispossession and the clinic. In addition to this work, Alicia investigates how trauma, therapy, and healing are shaped by technology under racial capitalism in the contemporary moment. Alicia is also a practicing psychotherapist and has served as a visiting adjunct professor at both the University of Pennsylvania and the Smith College School for Social Work. Before beginning a PhD, Alicia worked in community mental health and co-founded an arts, activism, and healing project for people affected by sexual and intimate violence, with a focus on supporting queer survivors of color. Alicia holds a PhD in Social Welfare from the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy and Practice.