Liza Hita

Liza Hita is a clinical associate professor of psychology in the School of Social and Behavior Sciences in New College and an affiliated scientist with the Research and Education Advancing Children's Health (REACH) Institute. She is a member of the New College Anti-Racism Council (NewARC) and has served as an inaugural Dean's Fellow for New College, the Director of Digital Innovation and Inclusion for the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, and the Director of the digital-immersion Psychology BA/BS. Her administrative work has focused on the intersections of justice, transformation, and belonging using technology as a means of empowerment and community-building, as well as creatively scaling highly accessible, inclusive educational materials and opportunities. She is currently a Universal Learner Fellow partnering in the wide-scale dissemination of multidimensional courses accessible to everyone beyond ASU and a Study Hall content creator. Liza has also served as the faculty co-lead for the DEI Core of the Maternal Child Health Translational Research Team in the College of Health Solutions. 

Her professional service includes serving on the American Psychological Association Presidential Taskforce on decolonial and liberation psychology, participating in the APA Academic Feminist Leadership Academy, and being the APA Leadership Development Institute Fellow for Division 45, The Society for the Psychological Study of Culture, Ethnicity, and Race.

Liza engages in community-based participatory research focused on the dissemination and implementation of preventive interventions for families experiencing major life transitions, including high-conflict families (Family Transitions Guide), separating and divorced parents (New Beginnings Program), bereaved caregivers (Resilient Parenting for Bereaved Families), and families impacted by incarceration (Caring for the Caregivers). Her most recent exploration, Wayfinding Grief, focuses on cultural bereavement with Indigenous communities experiencing geocultural loss. She also studies decolonial methodologies, smart technologies, and counselor training, integrating them into her current research and practice on the online administration and cultural resonance of evidence-based parenting interventions and creating sustainable community-embedded supervision models. She's committed to the relational work and centering the narratives and lived experiences of the people she serves. She directs the Families in Transition Co(Lab), which focuses on the stories of caregivers and community care. 

Her community work bridges health disparities through culturally restorative, holistic practices. She is a full spectrum birth worker sharing traditional prenatal, birthing, postpartum, and loss support and a student of Batok/Patik, which is the traditional art and healing practice of tattooing in the Philippines. Liza also works in Perryville Women's Prison alongside Indigenous womxn doing cultural programming with A Good Relative, a group she co-created to provide venues for idea incubation, resource sharing, and collective dreaming.