Faculty

Carla Kmett Danielson, Ph.D.
Professor, Director of the Invictus Lab
National Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center (NCVC)
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science
Medical University of South Carolina
danielso@musc.edu
843-792-3599

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 applied clinical research. Her particular areas of research and clinical expertise are in: 1) evaluating and disseminating integrated treatments for comorbid PTSD and substance use problems, as well as HIV sexual risk behaviors, among trauma-exposed adolescents, and 2) understanding the pathways from trauma and stress exposure to mental health problems. Dr. Danielson has been continuously extramurally funded (e.g., NIDA, NIMH, NIAAA, Brain & Behavior Foundation, SAMHSA) as an MUSC faculty member. Her studies include randomized controlled trials (RCTs), assessment and lab-based studies that focus on biomarkers and mechanisms underlying the etiology of PTSD, addiction, and other psychopathology among trauma-exposed young people (e.g., current NIMH R01 examining threat-related negative valence systems, child victimization, and anxiety), and mixed methods investigations related to m-Health intervention development and evaluation. Of note, Dr. Danielson is the developer of Risk Reduction through Family Therapy (RRFT), an exposure-based integrative treatment for comorbid PTSD symptoms and substance use problems among adolescents with published RCT support (Danielson et al., 2012). She is currently leading a NIDA R01-funded large scale RCT evaluation of RRFT. She is the Founding Director of the EMPOWERR Program, which is dedicated to reducing HIV infection and substance use among local at-risk youth. Dr. Danielson is PI on a NIDA K24 (Mentorship and Research in HIV and Addiction Prevention among Traumatized Youth) and an NIMH T32 (Basic and Translational Research Training on Traumatic Stress Across the Lifespan)--and serves as a dedicated mentor to early stage investigators, post-doctoral fellows, psychology interns, and medical residents and students. Dr. Danielson serves as Co-Chair of the Faculty Development Committee for the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences.

Zachary Adams, Ph.D.
Co-Director
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry & Clinical Psychology
Psychiatry at Indiana University School of Medicine
Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry at MUSC
zwadams@iu.edu

Dr. Adams is Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis and Adjunct Assistant Professor in the MUSC Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences.  Dr. Adams received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Kentucky in 2012. He then completed a Pre-Doctoral Internship in Clinical Psychology at the Charleston Consortium Psychology Internship Program at MUSC and a 2-year NIMH-supported Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the NCVC, after which time he joined the MUSC faculty.  Dr. Adams’s research is focused on improving our understanding of how mental health and substance use problems develop following childhood trauma, and what clinical strategies may be most effective in treating these disorders and promoting resilience.  He is especially interested in 1) adolescent traumatic stress, substance use, and health risk behaviors, and 2) integrated and technology-facilitated behavioral health interventions for youth and families. He is PI on a NIDA-funded Career Development Award (K23DA-038257) on use of mobile technologies to improve treatments for co-occurring substance use and mental health disorders in youth, as well as a 3-year research project funded through the Indiana University Addictions Grand Challenge. He serves as Co-I on several NIH-funded projects led by Dr. Danielson and other faculty colleagues.  Along with colleagues at Indiana University and with funding support from the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration, Dr. Adams leads or contributes to several ongoing programs aimed at improving access to high quality behavioral health care services across the state through workforce development and provider-to-provider consultation services.  Dr. Adams is an active clinician and educator. He is an RRFT national trainer and a nationally certified TF-CBT therapist and supervisor.  He also  practices and serves as Training Director for the Adolescent Dual Diagnosis Program in the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Clinic at Riley Hospital for Children at IU Health, where he also trains and supervises students, interns, residents, fellows, and staff in delivery of evidence-based psychotherapies.  

Colleen A. Halliday-Boykins, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science
Medical University of South Carolina
hallidca@musc.edu
843-876-1073

Dr. Halliday-Boykins is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.  She received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1999 and completed her internship at the Charleston Consortium Psychology Internship Training Program. She joined the MUSC faculty in 1999. After a career hiatus due to child rearing beginning in 2005, she rejoined the faculty full time in 2015. Dr. Halliday-Boykins currently serves as the Director of Research Training for the internship program.

Dr. Halliday-Boykins’ research interests broadly pertain to understanding, preventing, and addressing racial/ethnic disparities in antisocial behavior, other mental health problems, and substance use children and adolescents. Her particular areas of interest are in 1) the effects of direct and vicarious racial/ethnic discrimination on youth mental health and behavior outcomes and the mechanisms these effects, and 2) schools as sources of racial/ethnic disparities in youth mental health and behavior outcomes as well as contexts for intervention to reduce these disparities. Dr. Halliday-Boykins has received funding both as a principal investigator and as a co-investigator from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the National Institute of Justice and has collaborated on several other research projects funded by National Institutes of Health and other agencies. Currently, she is principal investigator on an NIMHD-funded R01, which is a school-based randomized controlled trial to examine the effects of integrating a multilevel intervention to address racial/ethnic discrimination into violence prevention as a means to reduce disparities in youth violent/aggressive behavior. She is also currently the principal investigator on an NIMH-funded administrative supplement to understand the roles of racial discrimination and race-related traumatic events on racial disparities in youth anxiety. Dr. Halliday-Boykins has served on the editorial board for Developmental Psychology and as an ad hoc reviewer for several other scholarly journals.

Cristina M. Lopez, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
College of Nursing
Medical University of South Carolina
lopezcm@musc.edu
843-876-1034

Dr. Cristina M. López is an Assistant Professor in the College of Nursing and the Mental Health Disparities and Diversity Program in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC). She received her B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at Florida State University. She completed her predoctoral internship and postdoctoral fellowship at the Medical University of South Carolina (Charleston Consortium), followed by an Instructor position with Family Services Research Center (FSRC) from 2012-2013.  She is a member of the Society for a Science of Clinical Psychology, the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, and the Society for Advancement of Chicanos, Latinos, and Native Americans in Science.

Dr. López’s research interests include identification of barriers to treatment engagement in mental health services, the use of culturally tailored interventions as a means of engaging specific high-risk ethnic groups in prevention and behavioral health services (e.g., HIV prevention, prevention of child maltreatment), increasing visibility and access of trauma related services to Latino and other underserved populations (e.g. Telemedicine), and assessment of provider-level factors that affect youth and family involvement in outpatient community-based therapy.

In addition to her role as a researcher, Dr. López is a licensed clinical psychologist and serves as a clinical supervisor for pre-doctoral psychology interns at a school-based MUSC mental health clinic at Stall High School in North Charleston. Dr. López also holds leadership positions through CON Diversity and Inclusion Officer as well as the Assistant Director for the University's Office of Gender Equity. She also sits on several committees that address recruitment and retention of women and underrepresented ethnic minorities in academia. Dr. López has been honored as a National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) Scholar and serves as Associate Editor for the Clinician’s Research Digest, a publication distributed monthly by the American Psychological Association.

Austin Hahn, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science
Addiction Sciences
Medical University of South Carolina
hanha@musc.edu

Dr. Hahn is a Research Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences in the Addiction Sciences Division at MUSC. He received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of South Dakota in 2018. He completed a Pre-Doctoral Internship in Clinical Psychology at the Charleston Consortium Psychology Internship Program at MUSC followed by a NIDA-support Post-Doctoral Fellowship in the Addiction Sciences Division. Dr. Hahn’s program of research is focused on (1) identifying malleable risk factors underlying substance use and risky sexual behavior; (2) innovative intervention approaches for reducing substance use and risky sexual behavior; and (3) advanced analytic approaches to understanding complex risk behavior. Dr. Hahn’s research has been supported by National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) and National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). He is currently PI/Scholar on a K12 Career Development Award (K12HD055885) to examine an innovative computerized intervention to reduce alcohol use and risky sexual behavior among female adolescents. In addition to his research, Dr. Hahn is a licensed clinical psychologist.

Donte Bernard, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Psychological Sciences 
University of Missouri 
dbernard@missouri.edu

Dr. Bernard is an Assistant Professor at the University of Missouri. His research seeks to validate the lived experiences of Black youth through investigations of individual and broader contextual factors (e.g., microsystem, macrosystem). His research examines the psychological and behavioral health consequences of racial discrimination and traumatic stress, with specific emphasis placed on understanding how culturally relevant moderators and mechanisms (e.g., impostor phenomenon, racial identity, John Henryism, racism-related vigilance) may hinder or exacerbate this relationship. His research leverages both quantitative and qualitative methods to allow for Black youth to inject their voices, perspectives, and experiences into scholarly spaces that have otherwise been exclusionary.