Jeannette Ickovics, PhD

Jeannette R. Ickovics is the Samuel and Liselotte Herman Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences and Professor of Psychology at Yale University. She served as the Dean of Faculty at Yale-NUS College from 2018-2021, and was a Visiting Professor during the 2017-2018 academic year. Yale-NUS is a partnership between Yale University and the National University of Singapore. It is a selective college of liberal arts and sciences in Asia committed to training global leaders to solve some of the world's most complex challenges. As Dean of Faculty, she was responsible for faculty development and curriculum across the Sciences, Social Sciences and Humanities. Her legacy is marked by the recruitment of world-class faculty, establishing a multi-tiered mentoring program, and building research infrastructure as well as a culture of research at the College.

At the Yale School of Public Health, Dr. Ickovics was Founding Director of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the School of Public Health (2002-2012), and Founding Director of CARE: Community Alliance for Research and Engagement as part of Yale's inaugural Clinical and Translational Science Award (2007-2017). She was also Deputy Director for the Yale Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS where she was Director of an NIH training program for pre- and post- doctoral fellows for 15 years (now in its 22nd year). Dr. Ickovics’ research investigates the interplay of complex biomedical, behavioral, social and psychological factors that influence individual and community health. She uses this lens to examine challenges faced by those often marginalized by the health care system and by society. She has expertise in running large, scientifically rigorous clinical trials in community settings. Her community-based research – funded with more than $40 million in grants from the NIH, CDC, and private foundations – is characterized by methodological rigor and cultural sensitivity. She has held important academic and community leadership positions for the past decade, honing her leadership skills and expertise.

As Director of CARE, she was seen as a trusted and respected collaborator. Through her work at CARE, she secured New Haven as the first US site of Community Interventions for Health, a multi-national, multi-sectoral research collaborative focused on the prevention of chronic diseases worldwide. She was founding Chair of the Adherence Committee of the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (NIAID), responsible for the adherence portfolio across 27 AIDS Clinical Trials Units nationwide. In addition to other grants, she has been PI on two multi-site NIH-funded randomized controlled trials on an innovative model of group prenatal care, demonstrating a 33% reduction in preterm birth and other positive health outcomes for mothers and babies. Based on these results, The United Health Foundation funded a dissemination study of group prenatal care in Detroit MI and Nashville TN, with an eye toward national scale-up. Dr. Ickovics also was PI of a public-private evaluation with Merck for Mothers (evaluating the use of community health workers for pregnant women with chronic disease), the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center, and an NIH-funded randomized controlled obesity prevention trial at 12 middle schools in collaboration with the Rudd Center and the New Haven Public Schools. She is author of more than 220 peer-reviewed publications,

Dr. Ickovics is recipient of national awards and recognition, including most recently the Strickland-Daniel Mentoring Award from the American Psychological Association (2018), and elected a member of the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research (2020).