Kathleen Baggett

Ph.D. 2000, University of Kansas, Developmental and Child Psychology
M.S. 1997, University of Kansas, Counseling Psychology
B.A. 1989, MidAmerica Nazarene University, Psychology

Dr. Baggett is a Licensed Psychologist Health Service Provider and Tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Behavioral Sciences in the School of Public Health. She directs the Mark Chaffin Center for Healthy Development, one of the five university level research centers at Georgia State.

She began her research career with a U.S. Department of Education/Office of Special Education Programs funded post-doctoral research fellowship at the University of Kansas focused on intervention research with culturally and linguistically diverse children and families. For the past 20 years she has conducted federally funded research on effective intervention for optimizing maternal social-emotional health, parent positive support practices,  and infant-toddler social-emotional health and development. A central focus has been the development of virtual coaching interventions successfully deployed to engage highly vulnerable families and early intervention teachers and home visitors in low resource communities. Populations of focus include those with experiences at the intersection of racism and ableism,  including mothers with depression, anxiety, and trauma, infants with special health care needs, toddlers with autism, and families with and at-risk for child maltreatment. Sustained federal funding as a Principal Investigator exceeds $20 million across the sources of NIH/NICHD, NIH/NIMH, USDE/IES, HRSA, and CDC.

For more than 12 years, she has served as an NIH study committee or special emphasis panel member for grant reviews on child development, peripartum health and well-being, child maltreatment prevention and treatment, and cross-institute clinical scientist loan repayment awards. Long-term research partnerships include the International Peripartum Mood Disorder Research Group, National Toddler Treatment Network, and Oregon Research Institute. Within the Society for Prevention Research and the Bridging the Word Gap research groups she mentors early career researchers.

She teaches the graduate course, Maternal and Child Health, in the School of Public Health, and advises and mentors 3-4 doctoral students annually within the disciplines of Public Health, Community Psychology, and School Psychology. Examples of subsequent academic/research appointment settings for her pre-doctoral and post-doctoral fellows include Emory University, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, University of Pittsburgh, and the Georgia Healthy Policy Center.

Learn more about her work at http://sites.gsu.edu/baggettresearch/