Preferred pronouns: She/Her/Hers
Julie Cristello, MS, is a clinician with the Vista program at Bradley Hospital.
Cristello is a doctoral candidate in the clinical science in child and adolescent psychology PhD program at Florida International University (FIU), training under the mentorship of Elisa Trucco, PhD. She is completing her clinical psychology predoctoral internship at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. During her graduate training, she completed a T32 predoctoral fellowship funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), where she obtained advanced training in adolescent substance use disorders and co-occurring mental and behavioral disorders. Her NIDA F31 National Research Service Award funded her dissertation, which examined associations between social media content and adolescent substance use using novel methodological approaches like machine learning. Her research examines how both online (e.g., social media) and offline social contexts (e.g., parents, peers, school) impact alcohol and drug use among adolescents. The long-term goal of this work is to leverage contexts in which adolescents spend the most time to reach more youth and enhance mental health and overall well-being.
Clinically, Cristello is passionate about using evidence-based frameworks when working with families and adolescents who experience difficulties with substance use and co-occurring mental health diagnoses. She uses a culturally informed and person-centered approach to best meet the unique needs of each adolescent.