Dr. Thomas L. Rodebaugh, Ph.D.
Director
Dr. Rodebaugh is a clinical psychologist with a focus on anxiety disorders in adults, particularly generalized social anxiety disorder. He is also interested in psychotherapy outcome and process. His research focuses on improving the assessment and treatment of anxiety, as well as increasing understanding of the factors that maintain and reduce anxiety (e.g., attention bias). He is particularly interested in the relationship between social anxiety and interpersonal processes, particularly in regard to friendship. More generally, he is interested in further evaluating and enhancing exposure treatment across the anxiety disorders. He has a long-standing interest in the integration of social psychological research (e.g., dual process theories; self-regulation theories) into the domain of clinical psychology, and the selection of appropriate statistical models (e.g., structural equation models; item response theory models) for evaluating measures and testing hypotheses. Recently his work has expanded to include active projects concerning post-traumatic stress disorder.
Dr.
Rodebaugh’s primary clinical focus is on supervising graduate students
who provide psychotherapy at the department’s
To contact Dr. Rodebaugh, please email him at rodebaugh@wustl.edu
To view Dr. Rodebaugh's Twitter account click here
To view Dr. Rodebaugh's Tumblr account (blog) click here
To find out about articles published by Dr. Rodebaugh
click here.
Read Dr. Rodebaugh’s curriculum vitae.
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Michelle H. Lim, Ph.D.
Post-doctoral Research Associate
Michelle is currently running studies that examine the relationship between subclinical paranoia and social anxiety disorder. Specifically, she is interested in examining related cognitive biases such as attentional and reasoning biases that overlap between paranoia and social anxiety. She is also interested in emotional regulation and loneliness research. Michelle utilizes ecological momentary assessment tools and cognitive assessment tools in her studies. Michelle enjoys travel, good food and coffee.
To contact Michelle, please email her at michelle.lim@wustl.edu
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Katya C. Fernandez, M.A.
Graduate Student
Katya Fernandez (B.S., Duke University; M.A., Washington University in St. Louis) entered graduate school in August, 2008. Her current research interests include the initiation and maintenance of romantic relationships and friendships in socially anxious individuals, particularly using longitudinal data and informant reports. Katya is also interested in the development and validation of novel assessment techniques for mood and anxiety symptoms; a recent example of an assessment tool that she has been working on is TelEMA, a low-cost, web-based telephone assessment platform for conducting ecological momentary assessment research (click here for more information on TelEMA). Katya is also interested in examining the existence of stereotypes associated with social anxiety, and the role of self-complexity in anxiety and depression. In her free time, she enjoys writing, dancing, and spending time with friends.
Katya will be completing her predoctoral internship in clinical psychology at the Central Iowa VA for the 2013-2014 year.
To contact Katya, please email her at fernandez@wustl.edu
To see Katya's Curriculum Vitae, please click here
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Cheri A. Levinson, M.A.
Graduate Student
Cheri Levinson (B.A., University of Kentucky; M.A., Washington University in St. Louis) entered graduate school in August, 2008. Cheri’s current research focuses on understanding the high levels of comorbidity between social anxiety disorder and eating disorders. Cheri’s research is supported by a National Research Service Award (F31) from the National Institute of Mental Health. Currently, Cheri is testing if negative social evaluation fears (social appearance anxiety and fear of negative evaluation) are shared vulnerabilities that contribute to both social anxiety and eating disorders. Cheri is also interested in how negative social evaluation fears can lead to health outcomes (i.e., high body fat content), in exclusions’ effects on social anxiety, and in the relationship between social anxiety and technology. Finally, Cheri is interested in applying empirically supported treatments for anxiety disorders to the eating disorders. Currently, she is running a study testing if d-cycloserine (a learning enhancement medication) improves the efficacy of exposure therapy for patients with anorexia and bulimia nervosa. In Cheri's free time she likes to run, cook, spend time with friends, and take her dog for walks.
To contact Cheri, please email her at cherialevinson@wustl.edu
To see Cheri's Curriculum Vitae, please click here
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Julia K. Langer, M.A.
Graduate Student
Julia Langer (B.A. University of Wisconsin-Madison; M.A., Washington University in St. Louis) entered graduate school in August, 2009. Her research interests include the psychoevolutionary model of social anxiety that conceptualizes social anxiety as a strategic submissive response to concerns about social status. She is interested in how gaze aversion, a behavior associated with social anxiety, may relate this model. She is also interested in the relationship between higher social anxiety and lower positive affect. She plans to further investigate how people with higher social anxiety experience positive emotions and how these experiences can be increased to create more enjoyable social experiences. Julia is currently running a study on the relationship between state anxiety and positive affect for those with higher social anxiety and she is working on multiple papers on gaze aversion and social anxiety. In addition, Julia and Cheri Levinson are working on a paper concerning the relationship been peer victimization and social anxiety. In her free time, Julia enjoys running, reading, and craft projects.
To contact Julia, please email her at jklanger@wustl.edu
To see Julia's Curriculum Vitae, please click here
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Jaclyn S. Weisman, B.A.
Graduate Student
Jaclyn Weisman (B.A., Northwestern
University) entered graduate school in August, 2012. Her research
interests include cognitive and behavioral processes in the etiology,
maintenance, and treatment of anxiety disorders.
Specifically, she is interested in the diminished positive affect
that characterizes social anxiety disorder and comorbid conditions such
as major depressive disorder. In the future, she hopes to develop interventions aimed at
increasing positive affect.
Presently, Jaclyn is running a study examining the relationship between
goal types and content and participant performance and experience during
a public speaking task.
She plans to present a poster summarizing the study's findings at the
upcoming Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies Conference
2013. Additionally, she is a collaborator on a review paper
examining social anxiety disorder from a life-course perspective.
In
her free time, Jaclyn enjoys working out, cooking, dancing, and cheering
on Boston sports teams.
To contact Jaclyn, please email her at weismanj@wustl.edu
To see Jaclyn's Curriculum Vitae, please click here