Dr. Minero earned her PhD in Counseling Psychology from University of Wisconsin-Madison in August of 2020. Prior to her doctoral training, she earned the following higher education degrees:

• 2014 - Psychology, Master of Arts - California State University, Fullerton

• 2012 - Psychology Major, Sociology Minor, Bachelor of Arts - California State University, Fullerton

• 2010 - Psychology, Associate of Arts - West Hills Community College, Lemoore

Dr. Minero completed a 2 year Post-Doctoral fellowship as an LGBTQ Youth Trauma, Resilience and Community Education Post-doctoral Fellow within the UCLA’s Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. She provided LGBTQ-affirming care to youth, young adults, and their families and also supervised advanced trainees on the provision of clinical care through the EMPWR program. She also trained and developed curriculum for Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health professionals regarding provision of trauma-informed and LGBTQ affirming services.

She completed her Predoctoral Clinical Psychology internship at UCLA’s Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior Stress, Trauma and Resilience clinic where she provided bilingual and bicultural, trauma-informed, evidenced-based treatment (e.g., FOCUS, CPT) to children, youth, and families experiencing various forms of medical, complex, and interpersonal trauma.

Dr. Minero has experience working with LGBTQ, Latinx, Spanish-speaking and immigrant populations in clinical, advocacy, research, supervisory and teaching settings. As a social justice researcher, Dr. Minero examines how policy impacts the lived experiences of undocumented immigrant and LGBTQ+ communities to identify how to better-serve these populations through more inclusive implementation of policy and distribution of services. She contributed to scientific studies used to inform national policy as a 2019 Christine Mirzayan Science Policy and Technology Fellow with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Her research on undocumented and asylum-seeking transgender immigrants and their lived experience at the intersection of cissexism, racism, and state-sanctioned trauma has been supported by Ford Foundation Predoctoral and Dissertation fellowship awards. Her dissertation which critiqued U.S. Detention and Asylum-seeking processes for incurring trauma and psychological sequela on Latinx, transgender immigrants earned her APA’s Division 44’s (Society for the Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity) 2020 Transgender People and Gender Diversity Research Award, the National Latinx Psychological Association’s Outstanding Dissertation Award, Association for Hispanics in Higher Education 1st Place Dissertation Award, and the 2022 Outstanding Dissertation Award from the Committee for Global Psychology, American Psychological Association.

Dr. Minero co-founded the first university organization for undocumented students in Wisconsin, DREAMERS of UW-Madison which later grew into the first state-level organization in Wisconsin for undocumented students. Dr. Minero has been featured on Fusion for her advocacy related to campus sanctuaries having co-written one of the first campus sanctuary petitions to be circulated nationwide by-which various other petitions were modeled after 45th was elected President. Dr. Minero has actively participated in city council meetings providing testimonies for city ordinances, engages with her senators and congress members advocating for a comprehensive, humane and inclusive immigration reform and has taken several advocacy trips to Washington D.C. to fight for various immigration relief policies alongside United We Dream and the American Psychological Association.. She presently serves as the Advocacy Partner for APA’s Division 17 - Society for Counseling Psychology.

Dr. Minero has also delivered numerous keynote speeches, trainings and workshops to broad audiences nationally and internationally including non-profits, k-12 and higher education professionals, community organizations, researchers, mental health and government professionals on the provision of trauma-informed, LGBTQ+ affirming care, and transforming leadership with special emphasis on anti-racist, intersectional and liberation frameworks. Dr. Minero also serves as a consultant to come up with healing and liberation-based solutions that address systemic oppression (e.g., racism, heterosexism, cissexism), interpersonal trauma and historical colonization and its subsequent harm. Dr. Minero has partnered with national immigrant and social justice based organizations to create resources and mental health toolkits and resources for providers. She has also partnered with conference organizers to ensure their conference are culturally responsive and LGBTQ2-S+ affirming. Dr. Minero has also partnered with higher education institutions to process interpersonal trauma and systemic discrimination experienced by undocumented students and guided them in the cultivating relationships and care centered in anti-racism, decolonization, and liberation.

In recognition of her contributions to enacting change, social justice, and being a champion for anti-racism, equity and liberation, Dr. Minero has received several state and national service awards from the National Latinx Psychological Association, and the American Psychological Association’s Division for Counseling Psychology and the Society for the Psychological Study of Culture, Ethnicity, and Race.