Katherine Elkington, PhD

Professor, Clinical Medical Psychology (in Psychiatry), Columbia University and New York State Psychiatric Institute

Katherine Elkington, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist, Professor of Clinical Medical Psychology (in Psychiatry) at Columbia University and a Research Scientist and the New York State Psychiatric Institute.  She also serves as the co-director of Center for the Promotion of Mental Health in Juvenile Justice (CPMHJJ), co-I of the Implementation and Health Outcomes Core at the HIV Center of Clinical and Behavioral Studies. Dr. Elkington has over 15 years of research experience in justice settings, with a focus on the development and evaluation of implementation interventions, of which a centerpiece is building cross-system relationships between justice and community treatment systems.

In addition to her role of MPI on Project Opioid Court REACH, Dr. Elkington currently serves as PI of an implementation project, ‘e-Connect,’ an NIMH-funded grant to develop an implementation toolkit to increase identification of suicide behavior and comorbid behavioral health problems and achieve linkage to treatment for youth on probation in 10 counties in New York State. Dr. Elkington also has substantial experience working with individuals involved with the justice system, and their families, to identify and reduce risky behaviors, such as substance use and sexual risk behavior, through intervention and development of innovative service delivery systems to connect these youth to services.  To this end, she currently serves as the PI of a ‘MoveUp’ a NIDA-funded grant to develop and test an innovative intervention model for young adults involved in the court system to identify HIV/STI and SU risk behaviors via testing/brief screen, improve motivation to reduce risk behaviors and seek treatment and successfully link to appropriate community treatment.