Exciting ATA Updates

Dorian Lamis, PhD, ABPP, is a clinical psychologist and Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory University School of Medicine. Dr. Lamis’ research is broadly in the area of suicide prevention among youth, African Americans and underserved patients diagnosed with serious mental illnesses. He is particularly interested in identifying the unique individual, relationship, community and societal level risk and protective factors associated with suicidal behavior. Dr. Lamis’ current work focuses on understanding the link between adverse childhood experiences and suicide risk in abused African American women and individuals diagnosed with bipolar disorder. He also has an ongoing study examining changes in suicidality as a result of long COVID in individuals from underrepresented populations. Dr. Lamis’ research has been supported by federal and foundational funding, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, and he has received numerous awards for his scientific contributions from societies such as American Psychological Association and the American Association of Suicidology.

Joya Hampton-Anderson, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory School of Medicine. Her research program aims to understand the sociocultural determinants of health disparities and integrated health outcomes in youth and families, with a particular interest in childhood adversity and chronic stress. She is also interested in risk and protective factors that influence mental and physical health diagnosis, prognosis and treatment, with a specific interest in culturally competent clinical practice and research. She uses mixed methods to pursue two primary lines of inquiry: 1) What are the mechanisms by which contextual stressors influence psychological distress and health risk behaviors? 2) How do we best design and implement culturally competent interventions to reduce health disparities? Currently, she is conducting a qualitative needs assessment with African American youth, families and stakeholders who report experiencing increased anxiety and/or contextual stress to lay the foundation for the development of a culturally responsive intervention program. 

Negar Fani, PhD, is a clinical neuropsychologist and Associate Professor at Emory University in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and an affiliate faculty member in the Emory University Neuroscience Program, serving as co-chair of Admissions and DEI liaison as well as advisor to graduate students. She has been an investigator in the Grady Trauma Project for over 15 years. She uses a variety of tools to examine brain-behavior relationships in posttraumatic stress disorder (affective cognitive paradigms, neuropsychological testing, psychophysiology, functional and structural MRI). Dr. Fani investigates the intersection of racial trauma with attention, interoception and autonomic regulation. She uses data collected over the years to inform her intervention targets, and has been testing out novel, mechanistically-focused interventions for PTSD and dissociation. Dr. Fani's research has been continuously funded by federal and foundational funding, including the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute of Complementary and Integrative Health and the American Psychological Association, and she has been honored with various awards for her scientific achievements from societies such as the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation and the American Psychological Association.  

Sanne van Rooij’s, PhD, research goal is to identify predictors for development of post-trauma psychopathology and treatment outcome, and develop novel neuromodulation treatment approaches. She uses a range of research techniques including functional and structural MRI, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), electroencephalogram (EEG) and psychophysiological assessments including acoustic startle and eSense. She is especially interested in studying the fear neurocircuitry and inhibition and context processing as potential mechanisms for risk, resilience and treatment outcomes. Her current studies include a clinical trial on TMS for PTSD (NIMH K01 award) and evaluating individualized TMS targets using functional connectivity (Brain and Behavior Research Foundation Award), as well as predicting post-trauma psychopathology as part of the AURORA study. 

Abigail Powers Lott, PhD, ABPP’s research focuses broadly on identifying psychological and biological mechanisms of risk related to the impact of interpersonal trauma exposure on adverse health outcomes across the lifespan and improving trauma-related treatment access and outcomes in underserved urban communities. Dr. Lott is particularly interested in the use of culturally responsive mindfulness-based interventions to address underlying transdiagnostic stress-related mechanisms (e.g., emotion dysregulation, autonomic dysfunction and inflammation) in trauma survivors. She has numerous active RCTs examining feasibility of mindfulness-based interventions in Black adults. She also studies how trauma-related risk is passed across generations and seeks to identify pathways between maternal PTSD and adverse child outcomes in the first year of life.

The publication titled, “Adverse Childhood Experiences in African Americans: Framework, Practice and Policy” in the journal American Psychologist is the first collaborative research effort from the Atlanta Trauma Alliance. This paper described and explored the impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences in African Americans and outlined practice and police recommendations. See abstract below. 

Abstract: Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) disproportionately impact African Americans because of profound subjection to historical-systemic oppression in addition to personal and intergenerational trauma exposure. This article utilizes a biopsychosocial-cultural framework to understand the correlates of ACE exposure in African Americans and attends to the cultural factors that contribute to resilience. We review the evidence base for culturally informed, preventive-interventions, as well as strategies for bolstering this work by capitalizing on cultural strengths that are salient in the African American community. We also highlight pertinent policy initiatives guided by recent strategic outlines by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These policies provide the backdrop for the recommendations offered to facilitate the healthy biopsychosocial development of individuals and families. These recommendations can contribute to the expansion and creation of new policies that aim to strengthen individual coping in the face of adversity, enhance family bonds and resilience, and promote community capacity to reduce ACE exposure in African Americans.

Public Significance Statement: Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) disproportionately impact African Americans. It is imperative that we develop and test culturally relevant programs to prevent ACEs, as well as design interventions to reduce the negative impact of exposure. We need evidence-informed policies to support these efforts.

The Atlanta Trauma Alliance is represented on the Intergenerational Trauma thinktank through The Wellbeing Project, an international organization that seeks to promote wellbeing for changemakers through programming, research and evaluation, learning, convening, connecting and storytelling. Our work with this group involves writing a piece on intergenerational trauma and African Americans for a lay audience. The piece will be a part of a larger body of work from a group interdisciplinary of scholars.