Katie McLaughlin is a clinical psychologist with interests in how environmental experience influences brain and behavioral development in children and adolescents. She has a joint Ph. D. in Clinical Psychology and Chronic Disease Epidemiology from Yale University. Her research examines how adverse environmental experiences shape emotional, cognitive, and neurobiological development throughout childhood and adolescence. Specifically, her work seeks to understand how experiences of stress, trauma, and social disadvantage in childhood alter developmental processes in ways that increase risk for psychopathology. Understanding these mechanisms is critical for the development of interventions to prevent the onset of psychopathology in children who experience adversity. Dr. McLaughlin’s overarching goal is to contribute to greater understanding of the role of environmental experience in shaping children’s development, to inform the creation of interventions, practices, and policies to promote adaptive development in society’s most vulnerable members.

Professor McLaughlin's research has been funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, the National Institute on Aging, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Jacobs Foundation, the Charles H. Hood Foundation, the Brain and Behavior Foundation, One Mind Institute/AIM Youth Mental Health, and the Raikes Foundation. She has received early career awards from the Society for a Science of Clinical Psychology, the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, and the Jacobs Foundation as well as the Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contribution to Psychology from the American Psychological Association.

Research interests: Developmental psychopathology; childhood adversity; stress; trauma; affective neuroscience.