Aída Mencía Ripley

Aída Teresa Mencía Ripley is a scientist and clinical psychologist from the Dominican Republic. She is UNESCO Chair on Social and Academic Inclusion for People with Disabilities and Special Education Needs and Dean of Academic Research at the Iberoamerican University of the Dominican Republic (UNIBE).

She was born in Santo Domingo and raised in New York. She is the daughter of Aída Ripley Gómez (the daughter of Dominican hall of fame sportsman Enrique Ripley Marín and Aída Gómez Rueda ) and Rafael Mencía Ochoa. She is the niece of artist Geo Ripley. Her paternal grandfather was Dominican diplomat Rafael Mencía Lister.

Mencía-Ripley graduated Summa Cum Laude from St. John's University with a B.A. in psychology and earned an M.A. from the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research. She later earned an M.A. and a Ph.D. from St. John's University. She is a member of the American Psychological Association, WPATH, The Interamerican Psychology Society, and the Young Scientist Chapter of the Dominican Academy of Sciences. She is also a member of the Comité Dominicano Barón Pierre de Coubertin.

Her main areas of research are gender and health, clinical psychology, psychometrics, and psychology of language. She is an advocate for inclusive education in the Dominican Republic and deals with issues related to ethical and culturally respectful research in developing countries that pay special attention to intersectional issues of gender, ethnicity, and disability. As Dean of Research at UNIBE, she has steered initiatives that led to the creation of several research laboratories and international agreements to foster scientific research in the Dominican Republic. She is the 2017 winner of the José Salazar Award for best research paper in the Revista Interamericana de Psicología

Some publications of Mencía Ripley are:

• Brondolo, E., Wellington, R., Brady, N., Mencía-Ripley, A., Thompson, S., Cassells, A., et al. (2006). Racism and coping in a community sample of Black and Latino(a) adults. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 31, S162.
• Denton, E., Mencía-Ripley, A., Ullah, J., Brondolo, E., Cassells, A., Cubbin, C. & Tobin, J. (2005). Demographic variations in exposure to ethnicity-related maltreatment. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 29, S136.
• Brondolo, E., Grantham, K., Karlin, W., Taravella, J., Mencía Ripley, A., Schwartz, J.E., et al. (2009). Trait hostility and ambulatory blood pressure among traffic enforcement agents: The effects of stressful social interactions. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 14, 110-121.
• Mencía Ripley, A. & Guerrero Martínez, S. (2012). Características de los pacientes con trastornos relacionados al abuso de sustancias en un hospital dominicano. Revista Electrónica Medicina, Salud y Sociedad, 2 (3).
• Mencía Ripley, A., Fernández Melo, J., Mora, L., McDermutt, W., Thurston-Snoha, B., & Romero, P. (2012). Pilot study of a translation and cultural adaptation of the Anger Disorders Scale: Short Version. Humanities and Social Sciences Review, 1(4), 219-225.
• Mencía-Ripley, A. & Vargas Caminero, Y. (2014). Abuso de sustancias en estudiantes universitarios dominicanos. Revista Electrónica Medicina, Salud y Sociedad, 4 (3).
• Mencía-Ripley, A., Schwartz, J., & Brondolo, E. (2015). Gender identity, interpersonal interactions, and ambulatory blood pressure. Interamerican Psychology Journal, 49 (2), 261-271.
• Thomas, T.M., Schanche Hodge, F., Kotkin-Jaszi, S., & Mencía-Ripley, A. (2016). Stress and coping among college students in the Dominican Republic.Californian Journal of Health Promotion, 15 (1), 78-84.