Marcus Rodriguez, PhD

Marcus Rodriguez, PhD, is the Founder and Director of the Youth and Family Institute in Los Angeles (yfinstitute.com). He is also Director of the Global Mental Health Research Lab (globalmentalhealthlab.com) and Associate Professor of Psychology at Pitzer College. Dr. Rodriguez earned his master’s at Peking University, his PhD in clinical psychology from Duke University, and internship at the 3East DBT Program at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School. Marcus was born in California, grew up in Mexico, studied in Germany for a year during college, lived in China for 9 years after college, and has traveled to more than 80 countries. He provides direct patient care, consultation, supervision and training in English, Spanish and Mandarin. He has helped train thousands of mental health professionals throughout the United States, China, and Latin America. He teaches mindfulness and DBT at the Norco State Prison through the Pitzer College’s Inside-Out Pathway-to-BA Program. Dr. Rodriguez is a founding member of ISITDBT’s Antiracism Committee (isitdbt.net/anti-racism). He is the lead consultant of a 13-site randomized controlled clinical trial (RCT) examining the efficacy of DBT in inpatient hospital settings and a co-PI for a multi-site RCT of DBT on college campuses in China. He published a book on DBT in Mandarin, co-authored dozens of articles in peer-reviewed journals, and made more than 100 clinical and scholarly conference presentations. He enjoys travel hacking, making memes and writing children’s books.