Nicole I Torres, PhD, MSW
Assistant Professor, Academic Program Director, Human Services
Office
Location
MH 316D
Hours
Summer 2026: By appointment
About
Dr. Torres is an Assistant Professor in Human Services the Department of Health and Community Studies. She recently launched the Minor in Ecopsychology and serves as its Program Advisor. She is the author of Walls of Indifference: Immigration and the Militarization of the US-Mexico Border (2015), an ethnography concerning the effects of social and political polarization on community health. Dr. Torres, a medical anthropologist and a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker, is trained in ecopsychology and most recently studied psychedelic usage among ethnoracial minorities. The findings of that study are published in the peer-reviewed journal, Ecopsychology, and is titled "Psychedelics Offer Healing and Ecological Remembrance for Marginalized Individuals Failed by U.S. Health Care."
On occasion, she serves as supervisor for MSW students and associate-level clinicians. Her clinical practice focuses on the integration of holistic and nature-based activities so that a person is able to develop the tools to cultivate a life that one finds worth living.
Personal interests: Gardening, herbalism, and the arts.
Research Projects
- Completed: BIPOC Perspectives and the "Psychedelic Renaissance"
- Completed: Topographies of the Camp (doctoral dissertation)
Recently Taught Courses
- HSP 467: Ecopsychology
- HSP 404: Communities
- HSP 410: Mental Health, Individuals, and Systems
- HSP 325: Interviewing and Interventions
- HSP 485: Program Planning and Evaluation
Scholarly interests
- Ecopsychology and Ecotherapy
- Psychedelics and "mental health"
- "Symbolic Misery" and cultural malaise
- Civic Participation and Community Health
Clinical Focus
- Etuaptmumk: Two-Eyed Seeing
- Eco-anxiety and ecological trauma; ecotherapy
- Culturally responsive counseling
- Job satisfaction and organizational health
Education
- NIMH T32 Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Department of Psychiatry, University of Washington
- MSW - Social Work, University of Washington
- MA, PhD - Cultural Anthropology, University of Washington
- MA - Social Science, University of Chicago
- BA - Colorado Mesa University (Mesa State College)
Selected Publications
- Research Article (2025): Psychedelics Offer Healing and Ecological Remembrance for Marginalized Individuals Failed by U.S. Health Care
- Co-Authored Article (2025): Social Science Labs for Workforce Training and Health Services Research: A Comparative Case Study of Three Medical Anthropology Labs at Predominately Undergraduate Institutions
- Short Article (2022): Altered States: Liminality and Consciousness During COVID
- Co-Authored Article (2018): Interpersonal barriers to recovery from borderline personality disorder: A qualitative analysis of patient perspectives
- Book (2015): Walls of Indifference: Immigration and the Militarization of the US-Mexico Border
Selected Public Presentations
- Jemison Speaker (Invited): "An Ecological Remembering." University of Alabama, Birmingham
- Beyond Borders: How Dualistic Thinking Shapes our Worlds and Relationships