Gwendolyn Lawson (she/her) is a faculty member at PolicyLab and in the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and an assistant professor of psychiatry at the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania. She is a licensed clinical psychologist, with a particular interest in disruptive behavior disorders and classroom consultation.

Dr. Lawson is a former classroom teacher and has a background in implementing evidence-based interventions for children in schools, including consulting with teachers regarding managing disruptive behavior difficulties. Her current research focuses on developing and testing implementation strategies to promote teacher use of behavioral classroom interventions for students with symptoms of ADHD. Overall, her research aims to increase the quality of services youth with or at-risk for mental health problems receive in schools, particularly within under-served communities.

Dr. Lawson earned her doctorate in psychology with clinical training from the University of Pennsylvania in 2017. She completed her predoctoral internship at the University of Maryland’s Center for School Mental Health, where she provided prevention, intervention and consultation services in a Baltimore elementary school. She completed a T32 postdoctoral fellowship in implementation science at Penn’s Center for Mental Health. Her research is currently funded by a K23 award from National Institute of Mental Health.