Mary L. Pulido PhD

Mary L. Pulido, Ph.D., is the Executive Director of The New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the first child protection agency in the world. She has held senior management positions at the Child Protection Center of Montefiore Medical Center (a Child Advocacy Center), the Children’s Village, and at Covenant House/Under 21. Dr. Pulido’s protocol for crisis debriefing following child fatality and critical incidents is utilized throughout the New York City Child Protective Services system.

Dr. Pulido is a member of the Medical Reserve Corps of the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. In 2006, Mayor Michael Bloomberg appointed Dr. Pulido to the New York City Child Fatality Review Team (CFRT) where she served until 2015. She serves on the National Board of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children (APSAC) and on the NYS Chapter Board of APSAC and is Chair of their Public Policy Committee, and is a member of the World Childhood Foundation’s Scientific Advisory Board. Dr. Pulido holds a Ph.D. in Social Welfare from the City University of New York and a Master’s Degree in Social Work from Hunter College School of Social Work and in Teaching from Sacred Heart University. She is an adjunct Assistant Professor at the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College. She has published in the areas of detection and prevention of child abuse and neglect, child sexual abuse prevention, providing supervised visitation services, crisis debriefing, and preventing secondary traumatic stress.