about
Chaundra Finley-Merrell, LCSW
Consultant, Clinician, Advocate
Founder, The MOBI 1 Project
Chaundra is a licensed clinical social worker experienced in designing and implementing mental health programs for people impacted by forced migration. She holds a MSW from the University of Texas at Arlington and is certified in Global Mental Health, Trauma & Recovery from the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma. Chaundra's current clinical work explores the connections between art-based mental health, physics, and technology. Inspired by chaos and complexity theory, color therapy, and Stan Lee-- she studies how art created by post-migration communities reveals patterns of healing. As the U.S. clinical lead for the Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow (YTT) pilot intervention, she has seen how changes in art—specifically in color, pressure, form, and space—reflect shifts in sensory engagement, emotional regulation, and narrative coherence. She is currently preparing the next YTT pilot for visual analysis. Her goal is to better understand what this art might reveal about coherence, collapse, and systemic reorganization and stabilization. Chaundra invites transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary collaborations—from quantum physics to AI—to explore how art can connect symbolic healing with leading technologies.
the mobi 1 project
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Kristina Kirwin, LCSW
Consultant, Clinician, Advocate
Located in Austin, TX, Kristina is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker whose work focuses on both providing clinical services through private practice and consulting services on mental health program development and design through MOBI. She holds a B.A. degree in Economics and Hispanic Studies from Boston College and an MSW degree from Simmons University. While pursuing her MSW degree, she completed a practicum program that provides mental health services to displaced populations including refugees, asylum seekers and undocumented immigrants and later went on to work for the agency after graduation. During that time she gained experience in sustaining and expanding the mental health program, supervising practicum students and managing data tracking and reporting initiatives. These experiences created a passion for helping other NGOs launch and develop their own mental health programs in order to continue to expand access to care for displaced populations. In her private practice work, Kristina specializes in working with populations who’ve been impacted by trauma as well as the perinatal population. She has specialized training in multiple trauma modalities including EMDR and TF-CBT.
