Current Graduate Students
Julia Revillion Cox, M.S. (Seattle University, 2009)
email: CoxJR4@vcu.edu
Originally from Los Angeles, California, Julia graduated from Seattle University in 2009 with a B.S. in Psychology. Before joining Dr. Southam-Gerow’s lab, she worked as a Research Coordinator at the University of Washington, School of Medicine in the Division of Public Behavioral Health and Justice Policy. Broadly, her research interests lie in the dissemination and implementation of evidence-based mental health treatments for youth, as well as child maltreatment and posttraumatic stress. Julia joined the lab in the Fall of 2012.
Selamawit Hailu, B.A. (University or Virginia, 2012)
email: HailuS@vcu.edu
Selamawit is originally from Ethiopia and received her B.A. in Psychology and Cognitive Science from the University of Virginia in 2012. After graduating, she worked as a research assistant on a project designed to prevent early-onset of conduct problems among children in low-income communities at the University of Virginia. Before joining the lab, she worked as an Intensive-in-Home Clinician for children and adolescents at risk of being removed from their home environment. Her research interests include the dissemination and implementation of youth evidence-based treatments, specifically in low-income communities.
Natalie Finn, BS
Natalie graduated from Cornell University in 2013 with a B.S. in human development. Before joining Dr. Southam-Gerow's lab in 2017, Natalie worked for the Child & Adolescent Services Research Center at the University of California San Diego. She is interested in studying the dissemination and implementation of evidence-based practices for youth in community mental health settings.
Sandra Yankah, MS
Sandra Yankah is originally from Accra, Ghana and received B.S. degrees in Psychology and Sociology from Western Carolina University's Honors College in 2014. After graduating, she completed a master’s degree in clinical psychology at Valdosta State University in 2016. She joined the doctoral program in clinical psychology at VCU in 2017. Broadly speaking, her research interests lie in the dissemination and implementation of evidence-based mental health treatments for ethnic and cultural minority youth, as well as the development of emotional self-regulation skills in early childhood.
Lab Alumni
Alyssa M. Ward, Ph.D. (VCU, 2007)
Alyssa graduated from the VCU Clinical Psychology program in 2007 after completing her thesis and dissertation projects with Dr. Southam-Gerow. While at VCU, she was the recipient of the Deborah Braffman Schroeder Award for Research in 2005, as well as both the Outstanding Student in Clinical Psychology and the Outstanding Graduate Student Teacher Awards in 2006. In 2007, she completed her pre-doctoral internship in clinical child and pediatric psychology at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and was awarded the Martin S. Wallach Award for Clinical Psychology Intern of the Year. Dr. Ward completed a post-doctoral scholarship working with Dr. Bruce Chorpita at University of Hawaii and UCLA as a project co-director and clinical supervisor for a MacArthur Foundation-funded research network designed to study the dissemination of evidence-based child therapies in public health settings. Dr.Ward also served as the Training Director for PracticeWise, LLC. As a part of the MAP training team, she has trained and consulted with over a 1,000 therapists and supervisors in the Managing and Adapting Practice System of evidence-based clinical care. Dr. Ward is currently an assistant professor in pediatrics at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her research interests include treatment integrity and clinician training as they apply to the dissemination process.
Ruth C. Brown, Ph.D. (VCU, 2011)
email: BrownRC3@vcu.edu
Ruth received her Ph.D. from VCU's Clinical Psychology Program in December of 2011. Her primary research interests are the development and dissemination of evidence-based assessments and treatments for PTSD and other anxiety disorders in youth. In particular, she is interested in the use of multimodal assessment strategies such as self-report, caregiver-report, and behavioral measures to improve diagnosis and for the evaluation of treatment processes and outcomes. She is also interested in the adaptation and evaluation of evidence-based practices for anxiety disorders for youth with intellectual disabilities.
Shannon E. Hourigan, Ph.D. (VCU, 2012)
Shannon graduated from the VCU Clinical Psychology program in 2012 after completing both her master's thesis and doctoral dissertation with Dr. Southam-Gerow. Her dissertation tested a developmentally sensitive adaptation of an evidence-based group parent-training intervention to improve nutrition in toddlers and preschool children with cystic fibrosis. While at VCU, Dr. Hourigan received the Deborah Braffman Schroeder Award for Research in 2011, the Graduate School Dissertation Assistantship in 2011-2012, a Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Student Traineeship in 2011, and the APA Division of Pediatric Psychology Donald and Marion Routh Student Research Grant Honorable Mention in 2011. She completed her internship in clinical child and pediatric psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2012. Dr. Hourigan is currently an attending psychologist in the Medical Coping Clinic at Boston Children's Hospital, where she works with children with chronic and acute illness cope with a variety of psychosocial stressors associated with their medical conditions. As an Instructor in Psychology at Harvard Medical School, she is part of the training faculty in psychiatry and supervises clinical psychology pre-doctoral interns. Dr. Hourigan's research interests lie in the dissemination and implementation of evidence-based treatments in pediatric settings.
Alexis M. Quinoy, Ph.D. (VCU, 2015)
email: QuinoyAM@vcu.edu
Alexis is originally from Alpharetta, Georgia and received her B.S. in Psychology from the University of Florida. Her research interests relate to the development and dissemination of empirically-based psychological treatments for children and families. Her other area of interest is the diagnosis and treatment of internalizing and externalizing disorders in primary care settings.
Cassidy Arnold, Ph.D. (VCU, 2015)
email: ArnoldCC@vcu.edu
Cassidy graduated from the University of Colorado at Denver in 2006 with a Bachelor’s of Arts in Psychology and, prior to joining Dr. Southam-Gerow's lab, spent a number of years working with children and adolescents in wilderness therapy, residential treatment, and an inpatient psychiatric settings. His research background has included projects addressing assessment evaluation, treatment efficacy, early literacy intervention, and treatment integrity. Cassidy's current research interests are in defining and evaluating evidence-based assessment, evaluating the current state of assessment practices, and disseminating evidence based practices to community clinics.
Carrie B. Tully, Ph.D. (VCU, 2015)
email: BairCE@vcu.edu
Carrie is originally from Ithaca, NY, and received her B.A. in Psychology and Political Science from Boston University in 2006. Prior to joining the lab, she worked as a Research Assistant at the Boston University Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders on projects relating to anxiety and alcohol consumption, and at the San Francisco VA / UCSF for the PTSD Research Program. Her thesis evaluated the influence of cultural pressures on the development of disordered eating, and dissertation focuses on developing a measurement system to assess child mental health providers' cultural competence. Carrie’s research interests are in the dissemination and implementation of evidence-based treatments in pediatric settings.
Adriana Rodriguez, Ph.D (VCU, 2016)
email: RodriguezA2@vcu.edu
Adriana Rodriguez graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a BA in Psychology and minor in Ethnic Studies. Her research interests include child/adolescent mental health and services, specifically the dissemination and implementation of evidence-based treatments to community clinics; in addition to culture, race, and ethnicity-related mental health topics. Adriana joined the lab in Fall 2010. After an internship in Boston, she received her Ph.D. in August 2016 and is now a postdoctoral fellow at UCLA.
Lab Canines
Emmy “Scout” SG
Emmy has a degree in Running, one in Eating, and a third in Hunting. She has several rodent kills on her CV, sadly including a hamster from a local middle school. She is expert at bending humans to her will. She joined the lab in the winter of 2008.
Echo SG
Echo just finished second year at VCU after being rescued from a life in the wilds of Cumberland Co., VA. He has degrees in Chewing, Eating, and Over-excited Greetings. His enthusiasm has shown no upper bound. He joined the lab in the fall of 2016.