LAB MEMBERS

Principal Investigator

Assistant Professor of Psychiatry

University of Utah

Dr. Kaufman received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Utah, where she specialized in the department's Clinical Child and Family Track. She completed her clinical internship and post-doctoral training years at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Dr. Kaufman is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Utah and  an adjunct faculty member in the department of psychology at the University of Western Ontario.  

Dr. Kaufman's research focuses on interrupting pathogenic factors that contribute to self-inflicted injury (SII), borderline personality disorder (BPD), and suicide. She uses the developmental psychopathology perspective as a framework for conceptualizing and studying these complex problems. Dr. Kaufman studies SII and BPD conjointly because they share many phenotypic features, potentiating factors, and often co-occur along a common developmental trajectory. Her work builds on existing research that identifies both (a) markers of biological vulnerability to SII and BPD, and (b) environmental risk factors (e.g., coercive family processes, emotion invalidation) that shape vulnerabilities into more advanced and difficult-to-treat patterns of stress reactivity over time. Dr. Kaufman incorporates biological, self- and informant-report, behavioral, and ecological momentary assessment methods into her research designs.