Introducing the Edwards 2023 UW Faculty Speakers
Mark your calendars -- the 16th annual Allen L. Edwards Lectures will be back on April 19th and 26th, 2023! This year's theme is "The Transactional Relationship between Mental Health Research and Care." The challenges of the global COVID-19 pandemic have demonstrated the urgent need for expanding the mental health workforce and investing in mental health research and interventions. Our four speakers--two UW faculty and two guest faculty--will present new frameworks for understanding and treating mental health challenges.
We are pleased to announce that our UW Psychology faculty speakers this year will be Drs. Angela Fang and Vibe Forsythe Cox. Learn more about our speakers below:
Dr. Vibh Forsythe Cox
Vibh Forsythe Cox is a Clinical Associate Professor and Director of the Marsha M. Linehan Dialectical Behavioral Therapy Clinic, where she sees clients and supervises graduate students learning the foundations of DBT. Dr. Cox is also a trainer and consultant for Behavioral Tech LLC, the training company founded by Dr. Linehan. She is a DBT-Linehan Board of certification certified clinician. Dr. Cox holds a BA in psychology from the University of Kentucky and a PhD in clinical psychology from The Ohio State University. She is a board member of the International Society for the Improvement and Teaching of DBT and the chair of their Anti-Racism committee.
Dr. Cox's professional interests include increasing compassion, competence, and effectiveness in clinicians. Dr. Cox is passionate about increasing equity in the delivery of DBT, and mentoring trainees and providers of color to increase diversity and representation in mental health treatment and research. Dr. Cox became interested in DBT during graduate school, when she learned about the stigma among providers surrounding borderline personality disorder that creates a barrier to treatment for clients at high risk for suicide. DBT has been extensively researched and has been found to be an effective treatment for individuals experiencing borderline personality disorder and other problems related to pervasive emotion dysregulation. The DBT Clinic at UW, under Dr. Cox’s direction, is increasing access to DBT by training providers and offering comprehensive DBT that is financially accessible to clients with very limited resources.
Dr. Angela Fang
Angela Fang is an Assistant Professor of Psychology and Director of the CoNNeCT Lab (Center of Neuroscience, Neuroendocrinology, and Clinical Translation). She also holds a faculty practice in the CALM Clinic. Her research examines the neurobiological correlates of anxiety and obsessive-compulsive related disorders, in service of developing more effective treatments and helping patients achieve more robust, sustained clinical improvement. Dr. Fang studies mechanisms underlying anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorders and treatment in a multidisciplinary manner, using an array of techniques including neuroimaging, neuroendocrine assays, pharmacology and behavioral/self-report assessments, to better inform targets of intervention.
Dr. Fang holds an AB in psychological and brain studies from Dartmouth College and a PhD in clinical psychology from Boston University. Prior to joining UW Psychology, Dr. Fang was a faculty member and staff psychologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in the Department of Psychiatry and OCD and Related Disorders Program. Dr. Fang initially became interested in psychology in college, where she volunteered at the inpatient psychiatry unit at a local hospital coordinating activities for patients with severe psychiatric disorders. Keenly aware that psychology and neuroscience have been "built on the backs of the vulnerable” and that novel technologies are not accessible to everyone, Dr. Fang is committed to including more diverse populations in psychological research and outreach, in order to maximize the reach and impact of mental health interventions.