Erika Lawrence, Ph.D.

Dr. Erika Lawrence is the Director of Translational Science at The Family Institute and a Research Professor in the Psychology Department at Northwestern University. She received her B.A. in Psychology at Emory University, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in clinical psychology at UCLA. Her past academic positions include tenure-track and tenured professorships at the University of Iowa and the University of Arizona prior to joining The Family Institute. Her work has been funded by the DOJ, NIMH, NICHD and the CDC.

Dr. Lawrence’s work has provided at least three significant contributions to the field. First, in collaboration with a strong team of graduate and undergraduate research assistants, including Amie Zarling, she adapted Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in a group format to successfully treat domestic violence. She and her lab were pioneers in the field in applying and adapting this treatment model to this pervasive and destructive social problem. While conducting her treatment studies in this area, she and her team demonstrated that they were able to implement it statewide and still maintain its effectiveness at reducing IPV when working with a variety of agencies and communities. These findings are currently being replicated in MN and other states.

Dr. Lawrence received the Distinguished Contribution to Family Psychology Award from APA’s Society for Couple and Family Psychology (Division 43) for her pioneering intervention. The Pew Institute also honored her intervention for being the only IPV intervention that is both empirically effective and cost-effective, and it was featured on NPR Marketplace as an example of a program that is both effective at reducing target behavior and cost-effective.

Dr. Lawrence’s second notable contribution to the field is the development of the Relationship Quality Interview (RQI), the first fully psychometrically validated interview, in which she operationalized relationship concepts in a flexible manner that allows the field to explore constructs such as conflict, support, intimacy, sex and respect in a more nuanced manner than is typical in self-report or behavioral observation. The interview allows researchers to address these constructs in a richer way by collecting multiple examples of the different domains across six months, so that is it less of a “snapshot” of couple interaction and more of a multi-dimensional tapestry.

Dr. Lawrence considers one of her greatest contributions to be her commitment to mentoring future family psychologists, both through her own students and in her interactions with junior faculty and post-doctoral associates, thus ensuring the continuity and quality of couple and family psychology. She has pursued this goal through service to our field, serving as VP of Science for APA’s Division 43: Society for Couple and Family Psychology for two terms, and then as President of this Society. She also has served as a Co-President of the ABCT Couple Research and Therapy Special Interest Group.

Dr. Lawrence’s work represents her deep motivation to improve couple and family psychology with regards to dissemination and implementation. This interest forms the cornerstone of her job as Director of Translational Science at The Family Institute at Northwestern University. She believes it is critical to train people in the appropriate methods and stage models for effective program development and implementation, and she is at the forefront of this work in her role at The Family Institute.