Assistant Professor of Counseling
Jessenia Garcia, PhD, is a first-generation college graduate and the daughter of Mexican and Salvadoran immigrants. She is a proud roadrunner as she completed her master’s and doctoral degrees from The University of Texas at San Antonio.
Garcia is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in private practice, where she specializes in working with adult children of immigrants and high-achieving BIPOC professionals, and conducts forensic mental health evaluations for immigration cases. Garcia’s clinical experiences also include working in eating disorder treatment centers, college counseling centers, adolescent transitional living, and in the school system.
Garcia enjoys working on research projects with students. Her research interests include bilingual counseling, Latine mental health concerns, first-generation wellness and ethnic/racial identity development. She was named a 2022–2023 American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education (AAHHE) Faculty Fellow and a graduate fellow of Texas Chicanos in Higher Education (TACHE).
Garcia holds several leadership positions with professional counseling organizations. Her favorite classes to teach are counseling diverse populations, group counseling, assessment techniques and practicum.