Dr. McKay is a Professor in the Department of Medicine and Community Psychiatry at Mt Sinai School of Medicine with substantial experience in directing federally funded research endeavors in the area of urban child mental health services research and in HIV prevention efforts with urban pre-, early- and middle adolescents. As a researcher and clinician, she has considerable expertise in the development and implementation of interventions designed to improve mental health and reduce health and mental health risks in urban ethnic minority children and adolescents, for instance the CHAMP (Chicago HIV Prevention and Adolescent Mental Health Project) Family Program, which has been developed through 10 years of support from the NIMH Office of AIDS. The goal of CHAMP is to decrease HIV risk exposure for urban ethnic minority adolescent youths by reducing time spent in sexual possibility situations, delaying initiation of sexual activity, reducing drug use, and increasing safe sexual practices once the youth become sexually active. Dr. McKay is currently Principal Investigator of a grant examining the long-term effects of CHAMP on adolescents who have been participating since they were 9 or 10 years of age and who are now 14-16 years old. She has also adapted CHAMP to meet the needs of African American and Latino early adolescents living in the Bronx and is evaluating its effects in randomized controlled clinical trail and is a Co-Investigator on an NIMH-funded grant to examine the effects of CHAMP in a South African township.

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