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Clinical Psychology Ph.D. Program

Faculty

Henry Biller

Ph.D. (Duke University) Professor, Fellow: APA, APS

  • Research Interests: Role of the father, the father/mother relationship and the two-parent advantage in child, adult and family development. Gender, body-type, physical fitness, self-esteem and sex role development issues, the centrality of hope in coping with the vicissitudes of life.
  • Professional Interests: Parent and family life education and prevention of psychological problems related to paternal deprivation and child maltreatment; family therapy and consultation with regard to issues of child custody and visitation, encouraging helping professionals to take better care of themselves and integrating a concern about fitness into their work with clients.

David Faust

Ph.D. (Ohio University) Professor, Diplomate, American Academy of Assessment Psychology

  • Research Interests: Philosophy/psychology of science, clinical judgment, neuropsychology, and psychology and law. Current research includes such topics as the formation of false beliefs among clinicians and methods for correcting these and other sources of judgment error. Other studies have addressed psychologists and psychiatrists as expert witnesses, the capacity of mental health experts to detect simulated or malingered symptoms, and methods of neuropsychological assessment.
  • Professional Interests: Consultation and expert testimony in courtroom cases involving psychiatrists, psychologists and neuropsychologists.

Paul Florin

Ph.D. (George Peabody/Vanderbilt University) Professor

  • Research Interests: Research interests focus on community change, particularly planned change which is designed as part of community wide prevention or health promotion programming. General questions revolve around how community conditions and individuals interact, how changes in community conditions, institutions and process are brought about and the effects of such changes on individual and collective well being. Current efforts centered around three federally funded evaluations of community level alcohol and other drug abuse prevention programs.
  • Professional Interests: Primary professional identity and practice is focused on community level prevention and health promotion. Consultation, training and technical assistance are provided to communities; agencies and governmental units wishing to plan, implement or evaluate community approaches to prevention programming.

Ellen Flannery-Schroeder

Ph.D. (Temple University) Diplomate, American Board of Professional Psychology (Clinical), Associate Professor, Director of Clinical Psychology Training

  • Research Interests: Research interests include the nature of anxiety and depressive disorders in children and adults; efficacy of cognitive-behavioral treatment and prevention programs for children at risk for anxiety; parent training and the role of family factors in the onset, maintenance, and treatment of anxiety disorders.
  • Professional Interests: Professional interests include cognitive-behavior therapy for anxiety and depressive disorders; individual, family, and group approaches to treating anxious youth; indicated prevention for children at risk for anxiety.

Shanette Harris

Ph.D. (Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University) Associate Professor

  • Research Interests: Focus on the psychology of diversity and multiculturalism including race/ethnicity,gender, social class, and sexual orientation. Current research relates to eating disorders and disturbances, violence as a health issue, and cultural variation in health behavior. Most recent projects examine sociocultural-ecological correlates of eating behavior among African-American females and cultural moderators of the race/ethnicity-personality hardiness relationship.
  • Professional Interests: Primary activities and interests relate to multiculturalism. Consultation, training and supervision provided to agency and institutional members that serve minority adolescents and their families. Multicultural and cognitive-behavioral orientations to therapy with families/couples, individuals and groups.  Secondary interests involve minority college students' needs, progress, retention, and graduation.
  • Dr. Harris is not currently working with graduate students.

Patricia J. Morokoff

Ph.D. (S.U.N.Y., Stony Brook) Professor

  • Research Interests: Gender issues in sexuality; sexual assertiveness; HIV/AIDS prevention:  prediction of risky sexual behaviors and interventions to increase safer sex behaviors; psychophysiological and hormonal factors affecting sexual functioning.
  • Professional Interests: Feminist therapy for couples and individuals with special emphasis on sexual and physical abuse problems; HIV/AIDS prevention through population-based intervention programs.

James 0. Prochaska

Ph.D. (Wayne State University) Professor

  • Research Interests: Development of a transtheoretical model of behavior change that integrates stages,processes and levels of change. Applications of this model to understanding how people change health related behaviors such as smoking, diet, exercise, and safe sex practices and mental health related behaviors, such as alcohol and drug abuse, stress and distress. Development of interventions based on this model to accelerate changes in problem behaviors. Development of an integrative model of psychotherapy for eclectic therapists. Currently directs several funded projects through the Cancer Prevention Research Center. [Cancer Prevention Research Center Website]
  • Professional Interests: Health promotion and cancer prevention through population based intervention programs, psychotherapy with individuals and couples.

Mark L. Robbins

Ph.D. (Rutgers University) Associate Professor

  • Research Interests: Research interests focus on health promotion, disease prevention and decision-making particularly for planned change at both the individual level and on a population basis. Current efforts centered on a program of research utilizing the Transtheoretical model to understand decision-making and behavior change in stress management, organ donation & transplantation, & blood donation. [Cancer Prevention Research Center Website]
  • Professional Interests: Clinical health psychology emphasizing a cognitive-behavioral framework to develop and deliver behavioral medicine and health psychology interventions to adults in individual and group settings. Additional interests are in training development and delivery, motivational interviewing, stress reduction, including relaxation training and meditative techniques.

Lynda Stein

Ph.D. (Kent State University) Associate Professor

  • Research Interests: Substance abuse and other risky behaviors in forensic populations, especially juveniles, treatment and assessment of these behaviors including issues related to ethnic/racial bias. Recent publications include detection of under-reported substance abuse in juvenile correctional facilities, methods for enhancing treatment engagement during incarceration, family treatment for incarcerated juveniles, and reduction of at-risk behaviors after release. Targeted phenomena of her research includes group processes, reduction of substance use and risky sexual behavior, motivation to change, and more.
  • Professional Interests: Treatment integrity; assessment and treatment issues, including ethnicity/race as a moderator variable; bias in sample selection; treatment processes; drug and alcohol abuse; group processes; health disparities and public policy; professional training and development; substance abuse and crime; service delivery.

Research Faculty

Colleen Redding

Ph.D. (University of Rhode Island) Associate Professor

  • Research Interests: Tailored health interventions; HIV and STD prevention; interpersonal determinants of health behavior change; smoking cessation; primary prevention of mental health problems; health promotion and disease prevention; process-to-outcome research; multiple risk behavior change; sun protection behaviors; models of health behavior change; women's health; and medication adherence.
  • Professional Interests: Primary prevention through population-based tailored intervention programs; Motivational interviewing; eating disorders; adjustment and coping; stress management; clinical health psychology.

Psychological Consultation Center

Ann Varna Garis

Ph.D. (University of Rhode Island) Director of the Psychological Consultation Center

  • Professional Interests: Structural family therapy, Supervision and training.

Consultants and Practicum Supervisors

Katherine Haspel

Ph.D. Practicum Supervisor (University of Rhode Island): Individual Psychotherapy

Maria Garrido

Psy.D. Practicum Supervisor (Rutgers University): Multicultural Psychology, Assessment

David Pearson

M.D. Consulting Psychiatrist. (University of Pittsburgh)

Emeritus Clinical Faculty

These individuals have retired from active teaching, but may be available for consultations

Lawrence C. Grebstein

Ph.D. (University of Kentucky) Professor Emeritus

  • Research Interests: Development of an empirically derived family assessment scale based on an integrated eclectic model of family systems theory for use in applied family research; family of origin influences on personality and behavior.

  • Professional Interests: Brief psychotherapy with individuals, families and groups with special emphasis on adolescent problems, juvenile delinquency and substance abuse; psychotherapy supervision; consultation with third party health insurance carriers regarding reimbursement for mental health services, managed care and other policy issues.

Alan Willoughby

Ph.D. (University of Connecticut) Professor Emeritus

  • Research Interests: Development of a model for understanding alcohol and substance abuse based on the alcohol troubled person; the role of physiological factors such as nutrition and chemical use on behavior; and psychological issues in health maintenance.
  • Professional Interests: Founder and current director of a residential educational rehabilitation program for substance abusers; consultation, workshop presentation, education and psychotherapy related to substance abuse; group therapy; community issues in health care, mental health administration and managed care.

In Memoriam

Allan Berman

Ph.D. (Louisiana State University) Professor, Diplomate, American Board of Professional Neuropsychology

  • Research Interests: Neuropsychological approaches to the understanding of learning disorders, behavioral problems, and adjustment disorders of children and adolescents; effects of physical abuse, sexual abuse and/or chronic disability in the later adjustment of children and families.
  • Professional Interests: Provision of direct clinical services, including psychological and neuropsychological assessment, and psychotherapy to children, adolescents, young adults and families; humanistic and cognitively-oriented approaches to psychotherapy and family therapy. Special focus on sexually-abused and ADHD children and their families.

In addition, numerous faculty in the Behavior Science and School Psychology programs regularly work with clinical area graduate students in a variety of roles including serving as Major Professor and on committees.  Brief faculty descriptions can be found here Department Faculty Descriptions and on the pages describing the Psychology Department and program areas.