Originally from Costa Rica, Valkiria Durán-Narucki is a Lecturer in the Department of Psychology of the College of Staten Island, CUNY. She came to the United States thanks to a Fulbright Scholarship from the US Department of State. She obtained a master’s degree from New York University with an emphasis in Community Psychology, and a Ph.D. from the Graduate Center of CUNY in Environmental Psychology. Her main research focus is environmental meaning and the reproduction of social structure in urban public school buildings. She is interested in learning about the role of the physical environment in creating or interrupting processes of social justice. She is also interested in the health effects of the physical environment from the perspective of environmental and ecological psychology. Her research intends to inform and affect public policy. Dr. Duran-Narucki has taught as a Visiting Assistant Professor at William Paterson University and as an Adjunct Professor at Lehman College. She has also been a research consultant for the Center for Building Knowledge of the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT).
Scholarship / Publications :
Durán-Narucki, V. (2014). Education and Environmental Meaning. In Gieseking, J., W. Mangold, with C. Katz, S. Low, and S. Saegert (eds). 2014. People, Place, and Space: Key Readings across the Disciplines. New York: Routledge.
Diamond, BJ, Shreve, GM, Golden, A & Durán-Narucki V. (2014). Information Processing in the Bilingual Brain. In The development of translation competence: Theories and methodologies from psycholinguistics and cognitive science. Schwieter, J. W., & Ferreira, A. (Eds.). Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Durán-Narucki, V. (2011) Built-in: Meaning and the reproduction of socio-historical characteristics in public schools buildings in the U.S. Educational and Child Psychology 28, 114-119.
Durán-Narucki, V. (2008). School building condition, school attendance, and academic achievement in New York City public schools: A mediation model. Journal of Environmental Psychology 28, 278–286.
Tseng, V., Chesir-Theran, D. Becker-Klein, R. Lam, M., Durán, V., Roberts, A., Bardoliwalla, N. (2002). Promotion of Social Change: A conceptual framework. American Journal of Community Psychology 30(3) 401-427.
Roberts, A., Seidman, E., Pedersen, S., Chesir-Theran, D., Allen, L., Aber, J.L., Durán, V., Hsue, J. (2000). Perceived family and peer transactions and self-esteem among urban early adolescents. Journal of Early Adolescence 20 (1) 68-92.
Contact Information :
Valkiria Duran-Narucki
Lecturer
Department of Psychology
College of Staten Island
City University of New York (CUNY)
Office : Building 4S Room 209A
Phone : 718.982.3775
Fax : 718.982.4114
valkiria.duran@csi.cuny.edu
www.valky.net