Andrew Orapallo PhD
Andrew Orapallo is the project director of Children's Hospital of Philadelphia's (CHOP) Tri-County School Mental Health Consortium (SMHC), a collaboration between the Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery County Intermediate Units and CHOP, with the goal to strengthen capacity for implementing, evaluating and sustaining evidence-based school mental health promotion programs. In addition to his work on SMHC, Dr. Orapallo works at CHOP’s Young Child Clinic, where he provides intervention, consultation and assessment services for children from birth to kindergarten. He also serves on the editorial board for Prevention Science as an early-career reviewer and is an active member of several professional organizations, including the Society for Prevention Research (SPR) and the American Psychological Association (APA).
Dr. Orapallo’s research interests broadly focus on the integration of evidence-based mental health programming into schools and community settings, with a particular emphasis on prevention and early intervention for high-risk infants, toddlers and young children. His work leverages principles inherent to dissemination and implementation science, trauma-informed approaches to care and community-engaged research. Clinically, Dr. Orapallo has expertise in early childhood development. In particular, he focuses on promoting positive parent-child relationships and teaching caregivers effective behavior management strategies for young children with or at-risk for disruptive behavior concerns. He also conducts comprehensive evaluations for a range of developmental, social-emotional and behavioral concerns at the Young Child Clinic.
Dr. Orapallo received his PhD in School Psychology from Tulane University in 2023. Prior to joining PolicyLab, he completed his predoctoral internship in Integrated Behavioral Health at CHOP, where he was also a Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (LEND) fellow.