BIOGRAPHY
Ph.D., Clinical Child Psychology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 2011
M.S., Clinical Psychology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 2007
B.A., Psychology (summa cum laude with distinction), Boston University, 2005
RESEARCH
Natoshia R. Cunningham, PhD, is a tenured associate professor in the Department of Family Medicine and is a licensed clinical psychologist. Her lab, The Healing Emotions iLIness Pain Lab, focuses on the psychological assessment and treatment of youth with chronic health conditions that involve pain.
A clinical psychologist by training, her research focuses on 1) developing and testing psychological treatments for youth with chronic painful health conditions (e.g., lupus, functional abdominal pain) and co-occurring mental health symptoms, 2) neural mechanisms of pediatric pain and effect of psychological therapies for these conditions, and 3) increasing access to behavioral healthcare for pediatric chronic pain and mental health concerns using community-engaged and culturally adapted methods, with active projects in the US and abroad.
Dr. Cunningham has published 65+ scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals and holds current or recent grants from the National Institutes of Health, the US Department of Defense, and several foundations, including the Michigan Health Endowment Fund and the Childhood Arthritis and Rheumatology Research Alliance-Arthritis Foundation (CARRA-AF).
She serves as a co-chair for the CARRA-AF Mental Health workgroup and am a member of the Scientific Program Committee for the US Association for the Study of Pain. She is a clinical trialist and dissemination and implementation scientist committed to training and mentoring the next generation of clinical scientists.
Dr. Cunningham was awarded adjunct status with the Department of Psychology in Spring 2025.
PUBLICATIONS
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=rFl0CykAAAAJ&hl=en