Experience
Clinical
I have been fortunate to train and work alongside a variety of multidisciplinary teams in a variety of clinical settings, including at a county mental health community center, group private practice, clinical research clinics at the University or Minnesota, and hospital-based clinics. I most recently worked as a staff psychologist at Children’s Minnesota. Along the way, I gained experience conducting comprehensive psychological evaluations, parenting evaluations for the county, and implementation of various evidence-based psychotherapy practices. In addition to broader training in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), I have specialty training in:
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT);
Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP or EX/RP);
Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions (SPACE); and
Habit Reversal Training (HRT)
Comprehensive Behavioral Intervention for Tics (CBIT)
I am a professional member of:
Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies
International OCD Foundation
Minnesota Psychological Association
Research
My research interests have focused on identifying specific factors that drive outcome variability in children with a history of adversity with the goal of informing interventions for reducing risk and promoting resilience. Early in the formation of my independent program of research I co-lead a large meta-analysis that found that adults exposed to early maltreatment were more likely to develop medically-unexplained chronic pain. The link was stronger for individuals with PTSD. My master’s thesis and dissertation continued to examine developmental pathways from early adverse experiences by studying self-conscious emotions (e.g., guilt, shame) as factors influencing different developmental trajectories in at-risk children.
Teaching
I have had the pleasure of designing and teaching the following undergraduate courses at the University of Minnesota:
Introduction to Child Psychology
Social and Personality Development
Adolescent Psychology