Community Engagement Core Director
Dr. Robin Lanzi, Professor of Health Behavior and Psychology, is an applied developmental psychologist with an MPH in maternal and child health and training in Implementation Science. Her postdoctoral fellowship was in Leadership Education in Neuro-developmental and Related Disabilities (LEND) at the UAB Sparks Center for Learning and Developmental Disorders. A central theme throughout her research is “putting research into practice” through multiple pathways, including a focus on community engagement and dissemination and implementation science. Her scholarly activities center on mental well-being, disability and chronic health conditions and the advancement of new research methodologies and strategies.
Lanzi has developed several technology-based applications in behavioral change research and has extensive experience in qualitative and mixed methods in assessing health related attitudes and behaviors. She provides extensive mentorship to students, postdoctoral fellows and early career investigators, and trains numerous national and local site investigators and research staff on how to conduct interviews and focus groups about highly sensitive topics (such as abuse and neglect, trauma, depression and risk-taking behaviors) as well as how to conduct standardized developmental assessments and naturalistic observations.
She founded the UAB Mental Health Ambassadors (MHA) Program as her Honors College Faculty Fellows initiative in partnership with Dr. Angela Stowe and Juhee Agrawal in 2019. MHA is a peer-to-peer mental health promotion program focused on mental health knowledge, resiliency, and self-care. She serves as Director of Community Engagement for CEDHARS, National Director of Community Engagement and Translational Sciences for NCHPAD and MPI of the UAB CFAR Implementation Science Consultation Hub. She served as Graduate Program Director for both the MPH and PhD programs in the Department of Health Behavior.