Kathryn Thomas, PhD, JD

Kathryn Thomas is an Associate Research Scientist in the Psychiatry Department at Yale School of Medicine, Clinical Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School, and Core Faculty at the SEICHE Center for Health and Justice. She is a licensed psychologist and attorney, and her research interests sit at the intersection of psychology and the criminal legal system. She is particularly interested in the health-harming impacts of incarceration and wrongful conviction from a legal epidemiological perspective, and factors that impact trajectories of psychological adjustment upon re-entry following incarceration. More recently, her research has focused on adapting evidence-based treatments for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder to meet the needs of people returning home from incarceration. As a psychologist, she has conducted clinical and forensic evaluations and provided evidence-based therapy to justice-involved clients in a variety of forensic settings (including a forensic hospital, juvenile court clinic, forensic drug diversion program, and public defender office), and she regularly serves as an expert witness in criminal and civil cases. She currently collaborates with several clinics at the Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization at Yale Law School, including the Challenging Mass Incarceration Clinic, Mental Health Justice Clinic, and Criminal Justice Clinic. She also provides training about mental health to Connecticut law enforcement through the Connecticut Alliance to Benefit Law Enforcement’s Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training program. She graduated with a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from University of Wisconsin-Madison and a J.D. from Loyola University Chicago School of Law. She recently completed her clinical internship at Yale School of Medicine’s Doctoral Internship in Clinical and Community Psychology, and a post-doctoral research fellowship at the Justice Collaboratory at Yale Law School and the SEICHE Center for Health and Justice at Yale School of Medicine. She is a licensed attorney in the state of Connecticut, and has experience in criminal defense, post-conviction appeals, and civil rights litigation.