# Katie A. McLaughlin

Katie A. McLaughlin is an American clinical psychologist and expert on how stress, trauma, and other adverse events, such as natural disorders or pandemics, affect behavioral and brain development during childhood and adolescence. McLaughlin is a Professor of Psychology at Harvard University.
McLaughlin received the Chaim and Bela Danieli Young Professional Award from the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies in 2013 and the Susan Nolen-Hoeksema Early Career Award from the Society for the Science of Clinical Psychology in 2014. In 2016, McLaughlin won the Distinguished Scientific Early Career Contributions to Psychology Award from the American Psychological Association and the Klerman Prize for Exceptional Clinical Research from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation.

## Biography

McLaughlin received her B.A. degree with Honors in Psychology at University of Virginia in 2002. Her honors thesis research was supervised by Robert Emery, who opened the doors to research on stress and child adversity. McLaughlin earned an M.S. degree in Psychology at Pennsylvania State University in 2004. At Penn State, she worked with Thomas Borkovec on studies of worry and rumination and with Douglas Mennin on studies of personality and anxiety disorders.
McLaughlin went on to complete a joint Ph.D in Clinical Psychology and Chronic Disease Epidemiology at Yale University in 2008 under the direction of Susan Nolen-Hoeksema. While at Yale, McLaughlin collaborated with Nolen-Hoeksema on research examining the role of rumination in the development of anxiety and depression in adolescents and adults.
McLaughlin completed post-doctoral work at the Harvard School of Public Health. At Harvard, Charles Nelson influenced McLaughlin to conduct research on child adversity that included policy and clinical implications. Ronald Kessler and Karestan Koenen introduced her to epidemiological approaches. She was an assistant professor at the University of Washington before joining the faculty of Harvard University.
McLaughlin was recipient of a Jacobs Foundation fellowship and a MERIT Award from the National Institute of Mental Health.

## Research

McLaughlin works in the area of affective neuroscience and developmental psychology, concentrating on how situations involving childhood adversity, trauma, and stress influence cognitive, emotional and neurobiological development in young children and teenagers. She has worked on large-scale studies linking childhood adversity and adult psychopathology including the World Health Organization (WHO) World Mental Health Surveys. and the National Comorbidity Survey. The results of her research indicate that adversities during childhood and adolescence heighten individuals' risk of developing mental disorders, including major depression and anxiety disorders.

## Representative publications

* McLaughlin, K. A.; Conron, K. J.; Koenen, K. C.; Gilman, S. E. (October 2010). "Childhood adversity, adult stressful life events, and risk of past-year psychiatric disorder: a test of the stress sensitization hypothesis in a population-based sample of adults". Psychological Medicine. 40 (10): 1647–1658. doi:10.1017/S0033291709992121. PMC 2891275. PMID 20018126.
* McLaughlin, Katie A.; Greif Green, Jennifer; Gruber, Michael J.; Sampson, Nancy A.; Zaslavsky, Alan M.; Kessler, Ronald C. (1 November 2012). "Childhood Adversities and First Onset of Psychiatric Disorders in a National Sample of US Adolescents". Archives of General Psychiatry. 69 (11): 1151–1160. doi:10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2011.2277. PMC 3490224. PMID 23117636.
* McLaughlin, Katie A.; Koenen, Karestan C.; Hill, Eric D.; Petukhova, Maria; Sampson, Nancy A.; Zaslavsky, Alan M.; Kessler, Ronald C. (August 2013). "Trauma Exposure and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in a National Sample of Adolescents". Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. 52 (8): 815–830.e14. doi:10.1016/j.jaac.2013.05.011. PMC 3724231. PMID 23880492.
* McLaughlin, Katie A.; Hatzenbuehler, Mark L.; Mennin, Douglas S.; Nolen-Hoeksema, Susan (September 2011). "Emotion dysregulation and adolescent psychopathology: A prospective study". Behaviour Research and Therapy. 49 (9): 544–554. doi:10.1016/j.brat.2011.06.003. PMC 3153591. PMID 21718967.
* McLaughlin, Katie A.; Nolen-Hoeksema, Susan (March 2011). "Rumination as a transdiagnostic factor in depression and anxiety". Behaviour Research and Therapy. 49 (3): 186–193. doi:10.1016/j.brat.2010.12.006. PMC 3042543. PMID 21238951.