Alex Karydi

Alex Karydi is currently serving as the Director of State and Community Initiatives at the Suicide Prevention Resource Center, the only federally supported resource center devoted to advancing the implementation of the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention. She has a Ph.D. in Clinical Sexology and a Ph.D. in Marriage and Family Therapy. She has worked in various systems, including school systems, the justice system, social services, and behavioral health, providing care as a therapist, grant writer, and program manager. In 2015, she was appointed as the Program Director for the South Carolina Department of Mental Health – Office of Suicide Prevention, where she was responsible for establishing the first state office for suicide prevention and developing the state school suicide prevention program. She has also worked as a Program Director for Project 2025 at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, a nationwide initiative to reduce the U.S.'s annual rate of suicide by 20 percent by 2025, and at Callen-Lorde Community Center, a global leader in LGBTQ healthcare in New York. Alex's clinical interests include lesbian, bisexual, and queer women’s health; transgender youth; HIV care, addiction treatment, and suicide prevention. In addition, they are a proud parent with the wife of their Queer Deaf child and a bunch of fur babies.