PhD, Developmental Psychology
The CUNY Graduate Center
MS Ed, Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages
Lehman College
BA, Creative Writing and History
Oberlin College
Dr. Kreniske is a developmental psychologist who uses implementation science to study adolescent health, focusing on technology and inequity in the United States and sub-Saharan Africa.
In sub-Saharan Africa, Dr. Kreniske uses digital technology in combination with public health methods to design and evaluate interventions that support vulnerable youth. In his international K01, funded through 2025 in Uganda, Dr. Kreniske identified risk factors for adolescent HIV infection using quantitative and innovative qualitative methods (K01MH122319: PI Kreniske). Dr. Kreniske then adapted a mobile phone-based HIV prevention and mental health intervention for adolescents. In 2022, he was awarded an early career grant from the Society of Research on Adolescence (SRA) to study the use of my mobile phone-based intervention to address the mental health impact of COVID-19 for adolescents in Uganda and Kenya.
Dr. Kreniske’s other line of inquiry focuses on reducing urban health inequities, including mental health and specifically suicide among young people from low-income households in the New York City Area. Using implementation science-based approaches and in collaboration with healthcare providers in the Northeast/Caribbean AIDS Education & Training Center and youth living with HIV in the New York area, Dr. Kreniske is developing approaches to confront urgent public health issues, including suicide and systemic racism. Building on a longitudinal cohort study, this line of work has been supported through an NIMH-funded R21 titled Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic On Coping and Behavioral Health among young adults affected by HIV (EPOCH-HIV) (R21MH130268: PI Kreniske) and a New York State Office of Mental Health (OMH) Policy Scholars Grant titled, Preventing Black and Latinx youth suicide: Experiences of living with racism, stigma, and chronic disease (Prevent Black and Latinx Youth Suicide) (PI Kreniske).
Before joining CUNY SPH, Dr. Kreniske completed a T32 postdoctoral fellowship at the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies and was an Assistant Professor in Psychiatry at Columbia University and a Research Scientist at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. Dr Kreniske is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor in The Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.