Sasha Zabelski, Ph.D. received her M.S. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Southampton and her Ph.D. in Public Health Sciences from the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. She started her career working in the Colorado community mental system as a crisis clinician, first in the psychiatric walk-in center and then as part of mobile crisis, before transitioning into mental health research. Sasha has expertise in behavioral health and suicide prevention research and program evaluation and has worked in various settings including the Veterans Health Administration, university research programs, and nonprofits. Sasha’s research focuses on how organizational and policy-based approaches can help to close gaps in mental healthcare access for marginalized individuals. Sasha also has extensive experience in providing advocacy support. She spent time as a policy researcher and consultant for Envision: You, a LGBTQ+ behavioral health organization and served as the Fall 2024 Health Policy Fellow for AcademyHealth. She currently works as a Research Associate at the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research in the Behavioral Health Services Research Program.