Department of Educational and Psychological Studies

Dr. Kohn-Wood received a B.S. in Psychology from Howard University in 1990 and a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology, with a specialization in Community Psychology, from the University of Virginia in 1996. She completed a two-year clinical internship/fellowship in Clinical Psychology at the University of California, San Francisco Medical School, specializing in serving ethnic minority and underserved populations at the Psychosocial Outpatient Clinic at San Francisco General Hospital and the Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute. Following her internship, Dr. Kohn-Wood completed a two-year Primary Care Research Post-doctoral Fellowship at Georgetown University School of Medicine in the Clinical Economics Research Unit and the Department of Psychiatry.

Dr. Kohn-Wood was on the faculty in the Department of Psychology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan from 1999 - 2008, achieving tenure in 2005. She joins the EPS faculty in January, 2009. Her research program focuses on race, ethnicity and culture in relation to the development and expression of psychological distress among diverse populations, with an emphasis on race-based protective factors for mental health among African Americans. She has also studied the relationship between mental health and violent behavior among youth, and ethnic and gender differences in the experience of illness and mental health service utilization. In addition, Dr. Kohn-Wood has done extensive community-based research with Detroit area Head Start agencies, including the development of a successful collaborative service-learning program for undergraduates.