Rate My Professor Alexandra Rodman

Alexandra Rodman is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology and the Institute for Cognitive and Brain Health at Northeastern University’s College of Science. A licensed clinical psychologist, she earned her PhD in Psychology (Clinical Science) from Harvard University, completed her clinical internship at the Boston VA Hospital in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, rotating through the General Mental Health Clinic and the Residential Substance Abuse Treatment Program, and held an NIMH K99-funded postdoctoral fellowship in the Stress and Development Lab led by Professor Katie McLaughlin at Harvard University. She received her BA in Clinical Psychology from Tufts University. Since July 2023, Dr. Rodman has directed the Social Development and Wellbeing Lab at Northeastern University. Her interdisciplinary research bridges developmental cognitive neuroscience and clinical science, centering on the social worlds of teens. She examines how social experiences interact with ongoing cognitive and brain development to increase risk for mental health problems during adolescence, including distinct social processing and behavior compared to children and adults. Dr. Rodman evaluates how social factors can be leveraged to promote resilience in the face of stress. Her work integrates experimental and observational approaches using novel behavioral tasks, neuroimaging with MRI, and digital phenotyping of real-world behavior via mobile phones. These methods support studies on topics such as social media effects on adolescent mental health and responses to stressful circumstances.

Dr. Rodman’s research has received funding from the John Templeton Foundation, including grants for 'Coming of Age in a Digital World' and character virtue development; the American Psychological Foundation; and the National Institute of Mental Health. She was named an APS Rising Star and is a recipient of the FY25 TIER 1 Award as part of a cross-disciplinary team. Key publications include 'Mechanisms linking childhood trauma exposure and psychopathology: A transdiagnostic model of risk and resilience' (BMC Medicine, 2020), 'Neurobiological markers of resilience to depression following childhood maltreatment: The role of neural circuits supporting the cognitive control of emotion' (Biological Psychiatry, 2019), 'Development of self-protective biases in response to social evaluative feedback' (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2017), and 'Social experiences and youth psychopathology during the COVID-19 pandemic: A longitudinal study' (Development and Psychopathology, 2022). Her contributions advance translational clinical research to improve adolescent wellbeing.