Carla Smith Stover, PhD

Carla Smith Stover, PhD, is a Harris Professor in the Child Study Center, and an Investigator with the IPV Center for Implementation, Research and Evaluation at the VA Connecticut Healthcare System. Dr. Stover’s interests are focused on the impact of violence and trauma (particularly family violence) on child development and the advancement of best practice interventions for children and families affected by such violence exposure. She was awarded a Career Award from the National Institute of Drug Abuse that began her research on interventions for fathers to reduce intimate partner violence (IPV) and substance misuse behaviors and improve parenting. She developed Fathers for Change and her recent book published by Guilford Press Fathers and Violence: A Program to Change Behavior, Improve Parenting and Heal Relationships is the manual for this intervention approach. She currently has two NIH research grants to conduct clinical trials of Fathers for Change: 1) for families involved with child protective services due to IPV; and 2) for fathers with co-occurring IPV and substance misuse disorders seeking substance use treatment in the community or the VA. She has presented trainings internationally on the topics of family conflict, healthy relationships, family violence, engaging and treating fathers and interventions for childhood trauma. Postdoctoral fellows in Dr. Stover’s lab will collaborate on research related to families impacted by IPV and substance misuse, stages of intervention development including piloting, efficacy, effectiveness and dissemination/implementation, mechanisms of change (physiological, neurobiological, behavioral) in IPV and substance use treatments, and/or parenting.