Shauntal earned their MSW from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, specializing in social work within school settings. Recently relocating from Seattle, they have extensive experience in various school-based mental health roles supporting clinical research trials for adolescents with ADHD, implementing K-12 district mental health interventions, and creating learning opportunities to enhance the social emotional professional practices of adult educators. Shauntal is a Predoctoral Fellow in the NIMH Mental Health Services Research T32 Program at the Brown School, where they focus on implementation science and school-based mental health interventions for youth. Their research particularly addresses the needs of queer adolescents facing issues of belonging and suicidality. Shauntal is passionate about addressing mental health disparities among stigmatized youth through an educational lens rooted in social justice. Utilizing mixed methods and community-based participatory research, they aim to amplify youth voices and experiences to inform both micro and macro-level mental health service implementation strategies.