Jessica Jenness, a postdoc in the Stress and Development Lab, has been awarded a Career Development Award from the National Institute of Mental Health that will support a faculty appointment in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at UW. Her project is entitled “Targeted Intervention for Adolescents following Child Maltreatment: Examining Neural and Behavioral Mechanisms within the Positive Valence System.” Childhood maltreatment is linked to an increased risk of developing depression and not responding to current best practice depression interventions, including cognitive behavioral therapy and antidepressants. Research suggests that child maltreatment may increase risk for depression through disruptions in reward processing, but no studies have investigated whether interventions targeting reward systems improve treatment outcome. Jess’ project will be the first to examine whether Behavioral Activation may be an alternative depression intervention that targets neural and behavioral reward system deficits. Study findings have the potential to inform efforts to personalize and optimize interventions in vulnerable populations of youth.