Shani Harris, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Psychology
Spelman College
Atlanta, GA
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Education
B.A., Psychology, Spelman College, Atlanta, GA, 1997
M.A., Clinical Psychology, Duke University, Durham, NC, 2000
Ph.D., Clinical Psychology, Child/Adolescent Emphasis, Duke University, Durham, NC, 2003
Postdoctoral Fellowship, W.K. Kellogg Community Health Scholar, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, 2003-2005
FIRST Postdoctoral Fellow, Emory University School of Public Health, Department of Behavioral Science & Health Education, 2005-2007
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Research Statement
As a FIRST fellow, I worked with Gina Wingood, Ph.D. on two NIH-funded research projects related to HIV prevention in African-American girls and women. The first, the National Survey on HIV Risk for African-American women, is a 5-year national, longitudinal study designed to examine gendered factors associated with HIV risk in African-American women; and the second, STARS: Sisters Talking About Real Solutions, is a study designed to evaluate the efficacy of relapse prevention components in a sexual risk reduction condition in comparison to an HIV education condition.
I am involved in additional research activities that include: the completion of the evaluation and dissemination phase of a media-based sexual risk intervention program that I developed for middle-school girls in inner-city Baltimore; working on manuscripts related to discrimination with the Center for Health Disparities Solutions at Johns Hopkins University; and disseminating findings from a study on the impact of sexual stereotypes of sexual risk taking in young adult women.
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Recent Publications
Peterson, S.H., Wingood, G.M., Diclemente, R.J., Harrington, K., Davies, S. (2007) Images of sexual stereotypes in rap videos and the health of african american female adolescents. J Womens Health (Larchmt), 16(8):1157-64.
Peterson, S.H. (2006) The importance of fathers: sexual risk taking in “low-risk” African-American adolescent girls. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 13 (3), 67-83.
Peterson, S.H. and Kelly, D. (2006) A community-based participatory approach to assess the context of sexual risk taking in urban, African-American girls. International Journal of Urban Health, 82 (4S), v36. Abstract.
Edwards, C.L., Scales, M.T., Loughlin, C., Bennett, G.G., Harris-Peterson, S., De Castro, L.M., Whitworth, E., Abrams, M., Feliu, M., Johnson, S., Wood, M., Harrison, O., Killough, A. (2005) A brief review of the pathophysiology, associated pain, and psychosocial issues in sickle cell disease. Int J Behav Med. 12(3):171-9. Review.
Edwards, C.L., Scales, M., Bennett, G., Harris, S., Whitworth, E., DeCastro, L., Abrams, M., Whitworth, S., Chadwick-Whitfield, D. & Killough, A. (2000). Sickle Cell Disease pain and psychosocial functioning. Proceedings of the 28th SCDAA annual A Focused Future: Care and Cure in the 21st Century Interactive Conference, 34-38.
Harris, S. (1996). Visitor Behavior in the Masai-Mara at ZooAtlanta. Proceedings of the National Conference for Undergraduate Research (NCUR), Asheville, NC.
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Spelman College
Department of Psychology
Atlanta, GA
Tel: 404.270.5645
Email: sharrisp@spelman.edu
