Ari S. Gzesh, MSW

Doctoral Candidate at University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy & Practice

Ari S. Gzesh, MSW is a PhD candidate in Social Welfare at University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy & Practice. Gzesh’s scholarly work tackles barriers and facilitators for sexual/gender-diverse youth and young adults’ (SGDY) wellbeing through three arms of research: 1) identifying risk-related psychosocial and behavioral constructs pertaining to health and mental health; 2) examining social support networks – specifically queer kinship – and its relationship to harm reduction; and 3) developing and evaluating clinical care interventions for SGDY that span systems across the social-ecological model. Their three-paper dissertation, titled “Understanding Psychosocial and Behavioral Constructs Related to PrEP Interest Among Trans-Masculine People Assigned Female at Birth,” garnered $30k in funding through the Penn Center for Mental Health and AIDS Research, a P50 NIMH-funded Center. Gzesh’s work has also been supported by the Leonard Davis Institute for Health Economics and the Eidos LGBTQ+ Health Research Initiative.

In addition to lived experience, their research agenda is informed by over a decade of direct practice. After earning a Master of Science in Social Work from Columbia University, they worked as a community-based clinician in the Bay Area of California supporting systems-involved youth experiencing sexual exploitation, substance use, and housing instability. Prior to pursuing their MSW, Gzesh taught for eight years in traditional and alternative classrooms, spanning from secondary schools to San Quentin Prison to domestic violence shelters.

While pursuing their doctoral studies, they served as a multi-year Fellow in Leadership Education and Adolescent Health at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, they co-founded Q+CARE Lab: LGBTQ+ Collaborative for Advocacy, Research, and Education. Gzesh is concurrently pursuing certificates in Implementation Science through Penn Perelman School of Medicine and Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies through Penn’s Center for Feminist, Queer, & Transgender Studies.

Representative Publications:

1. Gzesh, A. S., Prince, D., Jelinek, S. K., Hillier, A., Kattari, S. K., Shelton, J., & Paceley, M. S. (2024). “Death threats and despair”: A conceptual model delineating moral distress experienced by pediatric gender-affirming care providers. Social Sciences & Humanities Open, 9, 100867. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssaho.2024.100867
2. Gzesh, A. S., Jelinek, S. K., & Arrington Sanders, R. (2024). Rainbow resilience: Addressing the mental health needs of sexual- and gender-diverse youth. Contemporary Pediatrics, 40(02).
3. DelFerro, J., Whelihan, J., Min, J., Powell, M., DiFiore, G., Gzesh, A., Jelinek, S., Schwartz, K. T. G., Davis, M., Jones, J. D., Fiks, A. G., Jenssen, B. P., & Wood, S. (2024). The role of family support in moderating mental health outcomes for LGBTQ+ youth in primary care. JAMA Pediatrics, 178(9), 914-922. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2024.1956
4. Kynn, J., Boyke, H., McCarthy, S., & Gzesh, A. S. (2024). Structural vulnerabilities and over-criminalization of LGBTQ + youth in the California justice system. Children and Youth Services Review, 107586. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2024.107586
5. Jelinek, S. K., Gzesh, A. S., & Whelihan, J. T., Jr (2024). Queer-affirming mentorship: a catalyst for change and a challenge to power structures. Academic medicine: journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges, 99(6), e17–e18. https://doi.org/10.1097/ACM.0000000000005536
6. Gzesh, A. S. (2023). Words of healing for our younger selves. Journal of Adolescent Health. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2023.04.020
7. Grishow-Schade, L., Hillier, A., Gzesh, A. S., & Thompson, M. G. (2023). Breadcrumbs for family: How gender nonconforming, non-binary, and transgender adults give and receive gender messages. LGBTQ+ Family: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1080/27703371.2023.2208046
8. Gzesh, A., Kattari, S., Juarez, N., & Meyer, M. (2024). A (very brief) history of disability and sexuality policy. In S. Kattari (Ed) Exploring Sexuality and Disability: A guide for human service professionals (pp. 13–27). New York, NY: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9781003308331-3.
9. Greeson, J.K.P., Gzesh, A.S., Wasch, S., Jaffee, S.R, Ciluffo, K. (2022) “Just being there, like a shoulder to lean on”: Resilience and mental health among older youth in and aged out of foster care during COVID-19. Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40653-022-00498-7.
10. Gzesh, A. (2022). Queering kinship: Biopolitics, the death function, and transcendent capacity. NEOS 14 (2).

Contact

agzesh@upenn.edu