Alif Ahmed
Psychotherapist · Researcher · Social Enterprise Consultant
Threading work through clinic, courtroom, classroom, and community.
Building culturally responsive mental health, evaluation, and immigration support — rooted in the communities most often left out of mainstream care.
A clinician shaped by the work.
I'm a Bangladeshi-American clinician who came to social work through my own story — asylum, immigration, and the long arithmetic of trying to be made legible to American institutions in a language and a cultural register they weren't designed for.
I started in direct service as a Behavioral Health Specialist with ThriveNYC, expanding mental-health care in Black and Brown communities. I kept noticing the same pattern: the people who needed care most were the people our institutions were designed for least. So I started building what was missing.
Cultural responsiveness has to be a structural property of a care system — not a paragraph in a grant application.
Today I'm finishing a PhD at NYU Silver, teach as adjunct faculty at NYU and Fordham, sit with patients in eight languages between our practices, and lead six entities that try, together, to make that thesis real.
Six practices, one mission.
Each practice feeds the others. Clinical work funds the research. Research sharpens the clinical work. The forensic and consulting arms generate the evidence that lawyers and institutions need. The nonprofit keeps the community at the center — and keeps the practice accountable to it.
Each link opens its full site.
Alifa Therapy — Capacity Sharing LCSW PLLC
A multilingual psychotherapy clinic delivering individual, couples, family, and group counseling across three NYC offices and five state licenses. Sliding scale and most major insurance accepted.
Alifa Psychometric — Lifespan Evaluations
A clinician-led diagnostic assessment practice. Autism (ADOS-2), ADHD (DIVA-5), and dyslexia (CLDQ-R / ARHQ) evaluations from Pre-K through adulthood, delivered in six languages with culturally adapted instruments.
Alifa Eval — Forensic Immigration Practice
Forensic psychological evaluations for asylum, VAWA, U/T-visa, 601 hardship waivers, and cancellation of removal. Expert testimony, affidavit support, and culturally responsive trauma documentation for immigration proceedings.
Capacity Building & Research Development — CBRD LLC
A research and consulting firm offering expert witness work, country conditions reports, H-1B specialty occupation expert letters, DEI training, program evaluation, IRB compliance, and statistical analysis for organizations, attorneys, and nonprofits.
Dreamer's Hymn — 501(c)(3) Nonprofit
A community-benefit nonprofit founded in 2022 from lived asylum-survivor experience. Subsidized forensic evaluations, parenting and workforce programs for Bangladeshi and Muslim immigrant families, and systems-level immigration-policy advocacy.
NYU Silver Doctoral Research — PhD Candidate & Adjunct Faculty
Doctoral research at NYU Silver School of Social Work on immigration policy, gig and platform labor, and mental-health access for unauthorized immigrants, refugees, and asylees. Adjunct faculty at NYU Silver and Fordham. Publications and conference talks (SSWR, NYU PhD Live).