Leah M Adams

Leah M Adams

Leah M Adams

Associate Professor

Clinical Psychology: Psychosocial aspects of adapting to chronic disease and/or traumatic injury; HIV risk & prevention among high-risk groups; Health equity & reducing health disparities

Dr. Leah Adams is an Associate Professor at George Mason University in the department of Psychology and in the Women & Gender Studies program, and is a licensed clinical psychologist. She received a B.S. from the University of Richmond in 2008, and received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from George Mason University. She completed a pre-doctoral residency in Rehabilitation Psychology and Neuropsychology at the University of Washington Medical Center in 2014. She stayed in Seattle, WA to complete a two-year NIH-funded T-32 post-doctoral fellowship in Women’s Health and Aging at Group Health Research Institute (now Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute).

Dr. Adams’ research and clinical interests focus on how people adapt to living with chronic illness and/or acquired disability following injury. In this arena, her work covers a range of illnesses and injuries (e.g., chronic pain, HIV, brain injury, spinal cord injury), as well as a range of populations (e.g., older adults, racially and ethnically minoritized people, people involved in the criminal legal system). Dr. Adams' research also focuses on healthcare experiences and outcomes for members of minoritized and/or marginalized communities, with an emphasis on improving equitable care.

Dr. Adams will be accepting a new PhD student for the Fall 2024 application cycle. 

Current Research

You can learn more about my research on my lab website.

Selected Publications

See my Google Scholar profile here: https://rb.gy/lzex1t

 

Courses Taught

PSYC 391: Abnormal Psychology (Undergraduate)

PSYC 611: Advanced Statistics and Research Methods for Psychology I (Graduate)

PSYC 702: Biological Bases of Human Behavior (Graduate)

PSYC 897: Neurobiological Bases of Behavior & Fundamentals of Clinical Neuropsychology (Graduate)

WMST 450/550 / PSYC 492/592: Black Psychology (Undergraduate & Graduate)

WMST 319/PSYC 461: Gender Culture, & Health in The U.S. (Undergraduate)

WMST 610: Feminist research methods (Graduate)

Education

2008 B.S.  Psychology/Mathematics, University of Richmond
2010 M.A.  Psychology, George Mason University
2014 Ph.D. Psychology, George Mason University

Dissertations Supervised

Kara Hokes, “No Man Left Behind”: Conceptualizing Functioning and Increasing Access to Care for Male Survivors of Military Sexual Trauma (2024)

Aaron David Hunt, Disclosing Stigmatizing Health Information Across Illnesses: Learning How to Talk about Mental Illness by Examining HIV Disclosures (2023)

Kristina Marisa Volgenau, Understanding the Utility of Complementary Alternative Medicine in the Promotion of Women’s Psychological Wellbeing (2023)