Dr. Shawn Jones is an Assistant Professor in the Counseling Program in the Psychology Department at Virginia Commonwealth University and Director of AYA Research Team. Prior to relocating to Richmond, Dr. Jones was a National Science Foundation SBE Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education where he worked with Dr. Howard Stevenson. He received his doctorate in Clinical Psychology with an emphasis on Children and Families from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and was a Child Clinical Psychology Predoctoral intern at UCLA’s Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. During his time at UNC, Dr. Jones was both a Ford Foundation Predoctoral and Dissertation Fellow. He also holds a Master of Health Science in Mental Health from Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health (2010) and a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Duke University (2008).
Dr. Jones endeavors to impact the psychosocial wellbeing of Black youth and their families by: a) exploring mechanisms undergirding culturally-relevant protective and promotive factors; b) translating basic research into interventions that harness the unique strengths of the Black experience; and c) disseminating this research to be consumed, critiqued and enhanced by the communities the work intends to serve. Clinically, Dr. Jones is committed to the provision of culturally-informed child, couple and family therapy and assessment. Finally, Dr. Jones is passionate about eliminating racial health disparities, particularly those related to mental health services, which he sees as obtainable through stigma-reduction and mental health literacy interventions. To that end, Dr. Jones, together with colleague Dr. Riana Anderson, has created a video series and podcast, “Our Mental Health Minute”.