Riana Elyse Anderson Ph.D. LCP

Riana Elyse Anderson, Ph.D., LCP, is an Associate Professor at Columbia University's School of Social Work. She earned her Ph.D. in Clinical and Community Psychology at the University of Virginia and completed a Clinical and Community Psychology Doctoral Residency at Yale University's School of Medicine. She has been selected for fellowships at the University of Pennsylvania, Stanford University, and Harvard University in behavioral sciences and African American research.

She uses mixed methods in clinical interventions to study racial discrimination and socialization in Black families to reduce racial stress and trauma and improve psychological well-being and family functioning. She is particularly interested in how these factors predict familial functioning and subsequent child psychosocial well-being and health-related behaviors when enrolled in family-based interventions. Dr. Anderson is the developer and director of the EMBRace (Engaging, Managing, and Bonding through Race) intervention and loves to translate her work for a variety of audiences, particularly those whom she serves in the community, via blogs, videos, and literary articles. Finally, Dr. Anderson was born in, raised for, and returned to Detroit and is becoming increasingly addicted to cake pops.