Melissa Dvorsky
Ph.D. Licensed Clinical Psychologist
Melissa Dvorsky, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences and Director of the ADHD & Learning Differences Program at Children's National and the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences.
Her research focuses on improving the academic, social, and behavioral functioning of children, adolescents, and emerging adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Her work aspires to improve access to, and the effectiveness and sustainability of behavioral treatments by: (a) identifying and targeting treatment mechanisms including risk and protective processes, and (b) leveraging technology to enhance, personalize, disseminate, and generalize treatments.
Dr. Dvorsky is also an Affiliate Faculty Member at the Weill Institute for Neurosciences, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, and as a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology, College of Behavioral & Social Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park. She has published over 70 articles on ADHD and school mental health and she serves on the editorial boards of Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology, School Mental Health, and the Journal of Youth and Adolescence. She regularly engages with school and community partners through educational programming and training, advocacy, and research and is active in the training and mentoring of students, interns, and fellows.
Dr. Dvorsky’s research focuses on improving the academic, social, and behavioral functioning of children, adolescents, and emerging adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). This research follows two interrelated pathways: (a) identifying malleable individual and contextual strengths/assets that contribute to resiliency and positive outcomes for some youth with ADHD (e.g., social support, motivation, self-efficacy), and (b) improving the effectiveness and sustainability of psychosocial interventions by leveraging technology that targets treatment adherence among youth with ADHD and their families.
Her recent work has examined key processes including skill acquisition/ utilization, cognitive factors (e.g., motivation, self-efficacy, executive functions, engagement), co-occurring psychopathology, social support, and parent involvement that impact treatment utilization and adherence as well as treatment outcomes. She plans to translate this knowledge into novel intervention and service delivery strategies that optimize sustained improvements in functioning across settings.
With grant funding from the Institute of Education Sciences, she is currently directing RISE (Resilience in Student Education), a longitudinal, multi-method, and multi-informant study examining malleable individual, social, and school-level risk and resilience mechanisms that predict academic and socio-emotional functioning among students with ADHD, and how these processes differ for boys and girls, across the critical transition to middle school.
Additionally, she developed and piloted ATOM (Advanced Tools for Organization Management), with funding from a grant from the National Institutes of Mental Health. ATOM is a technology-enhanced skills intervention for adolescents with ADHD that aims to increase skills practice and promote sustained improvements by delivering in-the-moment interventions and empirically personalizing treatment.
Contact
Melissa R. Dvorsky, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Psychiatry, & Behavioral Sciences
Director, ADHD & Learning Differences Program
Center for Translational Research | Children’s National Research Institute
The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences
