Dr. Callahan’s undergraduate education was accomplished at the University of Jamestown, where she triple majored (psychology, applied music [trumpet), and music education). The legacy of her experience at UJ is evident today in the form of her deep commitment to mentorship. UJ has a student faculty ratio of 13:1 which allowed her close contact with professors who inspired and shaped her sense of self in ways that were both personal and professional. Recognized as a College Fellow, an honor bestowed on no more than two students with junior standing in a field of study annually, she was afforded academic ranking just below that of faculty for her final year of undergraduate study. Principled mentoring is key to the UJ model of education. It is also the primary method in which doctoral training in psychology is accomplished. As such, Dr. Callahan aims to bring the positive mentorship experience she enjoyed as a UJ student to the students in the CARE Lab.

After gaining work experience at a residential treatment center for children and adolescents, Dr. Callahan completed her masters and doctoral degrees in the Clinical Psychology program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her thesis project contributed to the development of the Perinatal Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Questionnaire–II (PPQ-II), reflecting an early focus on the creation of psychometrically sound measures designed for use in real-world clinical contexts. This work anticipated later implementation science interests by emphasizing measurement that could be feasibly embedded in routine care to support identification and monitoring of clinically significant symptoms.

Her dissertation examined the applicability of competing models of psychotherapy outcome within a training clinic setting, explicitly testing how theoretical models function under conditions of routine service delivery rather than controlled research environments. This work laid the conceptual groundwork for the CARE Lab by foregrounding questions of model fit, context, and sustainability that now anchor its implementation science approach to training, supervision, and behavioral health service delivery.

Dr. Callahan completed her APA-accredited internship in clinical psychology and clinical neuropsychology at Yale University School of Medicine and remained at Yale for postdoctoral training in the Department of Psychiatry. Her clinical training spanned inpatient, outpatient, cognitive rehabilitation, and forensic contexts, providing sustained exposure to complex healthcare systems characterized by high clinical acuity, interdisciplinary care, and variable resource constraints.

In parallel, her research training involved grant-funded work focused on neurodegenerative conditions, including dementia of diverse etiologies and psychosis. This work deepened her expertise in clinical neuropsychological assessment as a tool for applied decision-making in real-world settings, and reinforced an enduring interest in how assessment practices are translated into care planning across settings and populations. Together, these experiences further shaped the CARE Lab’s emphasis on measurement, context, and system-level factors as central to effective implementation in behavioral health services.