Faculty
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Christine Ajayi, Ph.D.Visiting Assistant Professor (DFT) Phone: (954) 262-3044 |
Dr. Christine Ajayi is from Dallas, Texas and is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Family Therapy program. Dr. Ajayi earned a Ph.D. in Marriage and Family Therapy from The Florida State University in 2011. She received her Master’s degree in Marriage and Family Therapy from The University of Houston-Clear Lake in 2008 and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology from Spelman College in 2005.
Her past clinical experience includes working as the Director of Counseling Services as New Mount Zion AME Church in Tallahassee, Florida and DePelchin Children’s Center, where she provided services to foster and adoptive families. Christine is currently involved in a number of research projects. She is involved with the Program for Strengthening African American Marriages (ProSAAM) project, and has helped to publish some of the program’s findings. This research study, which includes over 400 couples, is aimed to help African American couples maintain healthy relationships and reach the goals that they have set for themselves. Christine has served as a marriage educator in ProjectRELATE, which was funded by a federally-funded grant, where she provided relationship education to undergraduate students at Florida State University. Christine is currently using the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1997(NLSY97), which includes nearly 10,000 participants, to study relational processes during the period of emerging adulthood.
Her program of research centers on healthy relationship processes for those most at risk for encountering high conflict and violent relationships. Her primary interest is in the study of relationships over the course of emerging adulthood, when intervention may help to counter social and family risk factors that oftentimes lead to dysfunctional patterns in later adulthood. Dr. Ajayi is committed to social justice and the provision of relevant mental health services to minority families through best practices in training and service delivery. She has received extensive training on issues of cultural competence as a SAMHSA/AAMFT Minority Fellow and a Florida Education Fund McKnight Doctoral Fellow.