Biography

Alissa Huth-Bocks, Ph.D., IMH-E® (Infant Mental Health Mentor) is Director of the Merrill Palmer Skillman Institute and Professor of Psychology at Wayne State University. She is a clinical psychologist with expertise in infant and early childhood mental health. She has spent her career educating and training others, conducting longitudinal studies of early childhood development under conditions of risk, and translating developmental science into prevention and early intervention practices across sectors to enhance the health and wellbeing of children and their families. Through interdisciplinary and collaborative team science, her research has focused on understanding the effects of adversity, such as interpersonal violence, parental mental health and substance use disorders, and poverty, on family relationships and early childhood development. Her research has also utilized longitudinal data to examine developmental trajectories and outcomes using a developmental psychopathology framework. Further, her translational research has focused on refining and testing a new caregiver-infant/toddler developmental screening tool to be used in pediatric practices through a multi-site NIH-funded grant, as well as evaluating primary prevention and early intervention models to mitigate the effects of adversity on very young children within healthcare and community settings.

Dr. Huth-Bocks received her Ph.D. from Michigan State University in 2002 and additional post-doctoral training at the University of Michigan, Department of Psychiatry. She has been endorsed as an Infant Mental Health Mentor (Research/Faculty) by the Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health (MI-AIMH) since 2008. Additionally, she has served on the Board of Directors for both the Michigan and Ohio Associations for Infant Mental Health and maintains an active license as a Clinical Psychologist in both states. Dr. Huth-Bocks is regularly asked to contribute to grants and programs across the country as an expert in parent-infant/toddler attachment, early relational health, early psychopathology, and psychosocial adversity, particularly among diverse and marginalized families who are typically under-represented in developmental research. She is an active member of the Michigan Collaborative for Infant Mental Health Research (MCIMHR), a multi university-state partnership to rigorously evaluate the outcomes of the Michigan Model of Infant Mental Health Home Visiting (IMH-HV) and has served on other advisory boards such as the Health Policy Institute of Ohio's Adverse Childhood Experiences Advisory Board and the Ohio Safe Baby Court Team Leadership Team. She has also received a number of teaching and research awards for her work.

Please refer to her CV for further details.

Education

• Post-Doctoral Training, Child-Adolescent Clinical Psychology, University of Michigan
• Ph.D., Clinical Psychology, Michigan State University
• M.A., Clinical Psychology, Michigan State University
• B.A., Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Office Location

The Freer House
71 E. Ferry Street
Detroit, MI 48202

Areas of Expertise

• Infant and early childhood psychopathology
• Parent-infant/toddler attachment
• Early relational health
• Intergenerational transmission of risk
• Multi-generational health care
• Traumatic stress in families and communities

Office Phone

(313) 577-6338

Certifications

• Licensed Clinical Psychologist (Michigan)
• Licensed Clinical Psychologist (Ohio)
• Infant Mental Health Mentor (Research/Faculty, MI-AIMH)

Projects

• PediaTrac: An Empirically-Based Infant-Toddler Assessment Tool to Track Early Developmental Trajectories
• Michigan Infant Mental Health Home Visiting Evaluation
• Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and Obstetrical and Pediatric Outcomes
• Attachment Vitamins: Effectiveness of a Trauma-Informed Group for Improving Parenting and Attachment Security
• The Parenting Project

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