Image: Dr. Jessica Maples-Keller, a UGA Psychology alumni and postdoctoral fellow at Emory University School of Medicine in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, is the recipient of the Early Career Investigator Award. She works with the Emory Veteran’s Program, with mentorship from Dr. Barbara O. Rothbaum, and at the Grady Trauma Project, with mentorship from Drs. Tanja Jovanovic and Kerry Ressler. Her research interests include investigating factors that confer risk or impact treatment response for PTSD and anxiety disorders, how to understand and maximize the effectiveness of exposure based interventions, and the use of early interventions for secondary prevention of post-traumatic stress disorder and other psychiatric disorders. She is particularly interested in how we can use translational models of fear and anxiety to understand and improve exposure therapy. She received her B.S. from the University of South Carolina and her MS and PhD from the University of Georgia under the direction of Joshua D. Miller, where she focused on conceptualization, assessment, and diagnosis of personality pathology and disorders using general trait model approaches. Dr. Maples-Keller was a finalist for the J.S.Tanaka Personality Dissertation Award for her dissertation investigating insight within narcissism and psychopathy. She has published over forty scientific articles and was selected to participate in the Alies Muskin Career Development Program through Anxiety and Depression Association of America. Dr. Maples-Keller is also a practicing clinician specializing in exposure-based interventions for posttraumatic stress disorder and other anxiety disorders.
