A leading expert on social work practice within the Latino community, Dr. Organista's research focuses on psychosocial problems within the Chicano and Latino communities, acculturation and adjustment of ethnic minorities to American societies, minority mental health, cognitive behavioral therapy, depression in Latinos and HIV prevention with Mexican migrant laborers/Latinos.

Dr. Organista's book, HIV Prevention with Latinos: Theory, Research and Practice, is the first-ever collection of texts written by leading authorities on the topic of HIV prevention among diverse Latino populations. It attempts to respond to the diminishing returns of the behavioral model of HIV risk by deconstructing the many social ecological contexts of risk within the Latino experience. He is also served as the principal investigator for a National Institutes of Health (NIH)/National Institute on Alcohol Abuse Alcoholism (NIAAA)-funded project that seeks to developing and test a structural-environmental model of HIV risk and prevention for migrant day laborers in San Francisco and Berkeley (2010 to 2015).

Dr. Organista currently teaches courses on social problems and psychopathology, stress and coping and social work practice with Latinx populations. social problems and psychopathology in our MSW program, and the American Cultures course, Race and ethnic relations and social welfare in the United States, as well as the Honors Thesis seminar for undergraduate majors in social welfare.