Caitly Dominici ’24
Caitly Dominici ’24 is a Behavior Support Assistant at YAI: Seeing Beyond Disability in New York City, coaching parents and caregivers to manage challenging behaviors displayed by individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
She’s also enrolled at Columbia University working toward an an MSW in Clinical/Medical Social Work.
A 2024 SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Student Excellence recipient, Dominici was named one of the first recipients of a $4 million scholarship program to support underrepresented students entering or enrolled in mental health degree programs at SUNY and CUNY schools, made possible by a federal grant awarded to the New York State Office of Mental Health during her junior year.
As a result, Dominici worked on two research projects, the Senior Project required for Purchase and a second required for the scholarship.
“Her Senior Project aims to characterize the development of racial prejudice in young children, as well as how parents think about their children’s racial biases. Her internship project aims to understand how children from marginalized backgrounds think about the structural barriers they face,” writes Assistant Professor of Psychology Rebecca Peretz-Lange, PhD, who oversaw both research projects.
For both, Dominici independently collected data from child participants around the country over Zoom.
Experience Matters
Dominici’s lived experiences in a low-income neighborhood witnessing systemic social, economic, and educational disparities have fueled her career goal—to attend graduate school for social work so she can return to her community and play a role in making change.
“These lived experiences have taught me that the child welfare system needs to be more sensitive to racial inequalities that inform their standards of negligence. The system must assist families of color with support services rather than placing the burden of responsibility solely on them and proposing the removal of a child as a solution,” writes Dominici.
Wider Campus Impact
Previously, Dominici earned the “Outstanding Junior” award from the Psychology department, decided by faculty vote, and held several leadership roles on campus, such as a Learning Assistant for Research Methods 1 and Research Methods 2—two of the most challenging courses in Psychology—a Peer Mentor through the EOP program, and a Health Promotion Peer Mentor through the Prevention and Wellbeing Program. She was also a Resident Assistant in The Olde.
And Dominici earned the certificate in Early Childhood Education.
“It is very rare that I meet a student as driven as Caitly,” says Peretz-Lange, who describes her as “immensely self-motivated, intellectually curious, and professionally driven.”
Dominici’s long-term goal of establishing a non-profit organization to help people of color and residents of low-income neighborhoods gain access to resources in mental health and wellness.