Tami Sullivan, PhD

Tami P. Sullivan, PhD, is Professor of Psychiatry (Psychology), Director of the Division of Prevention and Community Research, Director of the NIDA-funded Postdoctoral Training Program in Substance Use Prevention Research, and Director of Family Violence Research and Programs (The Sullivan Lab).

Her naturalistic studies employ micro-longitudinal designs to explore how daily experiences and behaviors unfold in natural environments. Her interventional studies promote relationship health, resilience and recovery from trauma and substance use. Integral to her approach is community-partnered research, which centers women who have experienced IPV and the practitioners who support them. At the individual level, Dr. Sullivan's research advances understanding of factors that foster resilience, such as self-efficacy, empowerment, and hope, as well as factors that heighten the risk for negative outcomes, including posttraumatic stress, substance use, and sexual risk behaviors. She studies the impact of substance use, criminal justice, and other service system's responses on women's emotional and physical wellbeing, including the ways in which it promotes or impedes their safety, recovery and resilience. Dr. Sullivan's development of community-based and service-system interventions includes a peer-led support group, a single-session intervention to promote hope, and a stepped-care behavioral health intervention aimed at reducing trauma symptoms to enhance retention in opioid use disorder care.