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Mental Health
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Dr. Carla Kmett Danielson is an Associate Professor at the National Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center (NCVC) in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at MUSC. Dr. Danielson received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Case Western Reserve University in 2003. She completed a Pre-Doctoral Internship in Clinical Psychology at the Charleston Consortium Psychology Internship Program at MUSC, followed by a 2-year, NIMH-supported Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the NCVC. Broadly, Dr. Danielson’s research interests focus on treatment and prevention with high-risk adolescent and traditionally underserved populations, including basic and translational science studies that inform such applied clinical research. In the area of treatment, her current program of research, funded by a NIDA R01 award (R01DA031285), involves the evaluation of Risk Reduction through Family Therapy (RRFT), an ecologically-based intervention targeting substance abuse, trauma-related psychopathology, and HIV-risk behaviors among adolescent trauma victims. In the area of prevention, Dr. Danielson is the PI and Program Director on the SAMHSA-funded EMPOWERR Program (1U79SP015156), which focuses on prevention of HIV and substance abuse among local ethnic minority adolescents. As an extension of this HIV prevention work, she is currently investigating web-based approaches to bringing evidence-based HIV prevention curriculum to African American teen girls. Dr. Danielson also has an active program of translational research focused on possible biomarkers (e.g., candidate genes, serum and hair cortisol) and mechanisms (e.g., methylation, low distress tolerance) underlying the etiology of PTSD, addiction, and other psychopathology among trauma-exposed young people. She serves as PI on an NIAAA-funded Alcohol Research Center Clinical Research Component (P50 AA010761; Center PI: Becker), which is a 5-year lab-based study, examining the relation between acute stress and drinking behavior in trauma and non-trauma exposed emerging adults, as well as an NIMH-funded study (R21MH086313) focusing on the identification of mechanisms underlying the development of PTSD, substance abuse, and other high risk behaviors among disaster-exposed teens. Finally, Dr. Danielson is actively involved in the training of future researchers, mentoring NCVC predoctoral and postdoctoral fellows and serving as Training Director and Co-PI on a T32 grant (T32MH18869-27). She has published more than 60 papers on issues related to high risk adolescents, addiction, and mental health and been the recipient of numerous awards in recognition of her work in the aforementioned areas, such as the inaugural Mid-Career Innovator Award from ABCT (2014) and the Outstanding Research Article of the Year Award from APSAC (2012) for making a significant scientific contribution to the child maltreatment field.
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