Dr. Michelle M. Robbins
Dr. Michelle Robbins is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Clinical Psychology in the College of Health Professions and serves as the Interim Chair. She received an MS and PhD in Clinical Psychology from Emory University and a BA with a double major in Psychology and English from Vassar College. She completed a predoctoral internship and postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco, where she was based at San Francisco General Hospital and specialized in Public Service and Minority Mental Health, with a focus on early childhood trauma. She has been a licensed clinical psychologist in the state of Georgia for over 15 years.
Dr. Robbins has extensive teaching experience in courses related to trauma, developmental psychopathology, and models of psychotherapy. She incorporates active learning techniques into her pedagogy and has been nominated for teaching awards multiple times. Recently, she has collaborated on multiple research projects related to the scholarship of teaching and learning, such as the potential benefit of using reflective writing in the classroom.
Dr. Robbins has had diverse clinical experiences with individuals, couples, children, and families and with a wide range of mental health and substance use diagnoses. She employs an evidenced-based practice in her clinical work, combining empirically-supported treatments with the ecological model, incorporating a strengths-based and culturally-competent perspective to foster resilience in her clients. Whether working with young children who witnessed violence in their homes or youth living with HIV, Dr. Robbins applies a developmental psychopathology lens and attends to both risk and protective factors. She has a specialty in family therapy using a systems perspective and is trained in Child-Parent Psychotherapy. She has supervised graduate students, psychology interns, and postdoctoral fellows in both therapy and assessment.
Her clinical and research interests intersect with a general focus on emotional and relational functioning. Her research has examined parenting, early childhood development, trauma, maternal depression, and intergenerational transmission of risk and protective factors. Recently, she has been investigating emotional competence and coping among college students during the COVID-19 pandemic. She has co-authored multiple publications and presentations at local, regional, national, and international conferences on topics related generally to developmental psychopathology and SoTL.
Dr. Robbins is a longstanding member of the American Psychological Association (APA), Southeastern Psychological Association, and Georgia Psychological Association. She is also a member of APA’s Division 43 (Society for Couple and Family Psychology) and has been on the editorial board for the Journal of Family Psychology since 2012. She has also been an active member of Caring Communities, a consortium of behavioral mental health professionals in the metro Atlanta area fostering mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic.