Assoc. Prof. Leyla Ismayilova

Leyla Ismayilova is an Associate Professor at the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration. Professor Ismayilova specializes in the development and adaptation of family-focused interventions to improve child and adolescent mental health in the international context and has been involved in international research projects in sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East and the former Soviet Union.

Specifically, her research focuses on developing and testing multi-level culturally congruent preventive interventions that integrate family strengthening approach, focus on trauma-informed care, and incorporate asset-based economic empowerment strategies to address poverty as the structural factor that put children from impoverished communities at risk of violence and poor mental health.

She served as the Principal Investigator on a number of randomized clinical trials testing family-focused interventions with adolescents at risk for drug use in communities highly affected by heroin trade and use in Kazakhstan, with children from ultra-poor households at risk of violence, child labor and exploitation in Burkina Faso and, currently, with children reintegrating from residential institutions in Azerbaijan. Her research has been supposed by the U.S. National Institute of Health (the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development/ NICHD and National Institute on Drug Abuse / NIDA) and the Network of European Foundations (NEF).

Professor Ismayilova received her PhD and Master’s Degree in Social Work from the Columbia University School of Social Work (CUSSW) and was among the first Open Society Institute (Soros Foundation) fellows from the former Soviet Union at Columbia.

She also holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Psychology from Baku State University (Baku, Azerbaijan). Ismayilova was the founder and director of the Center for Psychological Counseling in Azerbaijan working with children and families with a history of trauma and abuse. Her work experience also includes clinical practice at substance abuse and child and family mental health clinics in New York City. She has also taught at Columbia University and New York University (NYU) Schools of Social Work.