Alyssa Ames-Sikora, PHD

Alyssa Ames-Sikora, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Medical Psychology (in Psychiatry) at the Columbia University Clinic for Anxiety and Related Disorders (CUCARD) - Westchester. She received her BA in psychology from Rutgers University, received her MA and PhD degrees in clinical psychology from Georgia State University, and completed her predoctoral internship at Children's National Medical Center. Following this, she completed her postdoctoral fellowship at CUCARD-Westchester. Dr. Ames-Sikora specializes in the assessment and treatment of internalizing disorders that affect youth and their families, as well as providing evidence-based assessment and interventions for other concerns, including adherence to medical regimens, coping with chronic illness, adjustment to new diagnoses, and behavioral challenges. Her research interests have centered on the effects of parental psychopathology, parent-child communication, emotion flexibility, emotion socialization, and the quality of interpersonal relationships. Dr. Ames-Sikora's dissertation investigated the effect of maternal depression on the flexibility of her emotionally expressive behaviors during interactions with her school-aged child.