Welcome to CREAR Lab, where we embody our name in action: Community Research Exploring Adolescent Resilience. 'Crear', meaning 'to create' in Spanish, symbolizes our commitment to creating, or fostering, positive psychological well-being among youth and families exposed to violence. Through rigorous research and compassionate outreach, we strive to empower young lives, creating pathways to resilience and brighter futures. Join us in our journey to transform challenges into opportunities for growth and healing.

Our research in this lab is oriented towards identifying factors that contribute to optimal well-being and resilience in the face of contextual risk factors, with a particular focus on community settings. Our program of research focuses on interpersonal and sociocultural influences on academic and psychological well-being across the lifespan (ages 11–65). Aims of this research include identifying factors that may act as protective in the face of violence (i.e., community violence exposure, sexual harassment, interpersonal violence). Protective factors of interest include cultural values like familismo, and dimensions of parent-adolescent relationships like parent-adolescent communication and parental involvement. While our lab has a particular interest in Latino/as in the U.S. and Latin America (e.g., Honduras, Puerto Rico, Mexico), we are interested in adolescents of color more broadly.

Assistant Professor of Psychology

Director, CREAR Lab

¡Bienvenidos! I’m Dr. Medrano, a developmental psychologist committed to examining how youth and women exposed to violence make sense of, survive, and resist trauma in their daily lives. I serve as Director of the CREAR Lab and Assistant Professor in the Developmental Psychology program at the University of Pittsburgh, with an affiliation in Clinical Psychology. Before coming to Pittsburgh, I received my Ph.D. in Social Work and Developmental Psychology from the University of Michigan, where I also earned an MSW and an MS in Psychology. I completed my BA in Psychology with a minor in Applied Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).

My research focuses on poly-victimization, gender-based violence, and structural forms of inequality, with an emphasis on resilience processes such as familismo, hope, religiosity, and educational persistence. I lead international, community-engaged studies across Honduras, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Nicaragua, and the U.S., using mixed methods to ensure that both voices and data inform our work. At the heart of everything I do is a deep commitment to ethical, trauma-informed research and mentoring. Through CREAR, I support a powerhouse team of undergraduate, post-bacc, and graduate students—mostly women and scholars of color—who are just as passionate about equity-driven research as I am. Together, we are building knowledge that is transformative for communities.

When I’m not writing, teaching, or in the field, you can usually find me developing training materials, reviewing grant proposals with collaborators, or cheering on my mentees. Our motto says it all: Resilience in Research. Strength in Community.