Education

• Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin
• M.S., Loyola College in Maryland
• B.A. Universidad Centroamericana, El Salvador

Specialization and Research Interests
Dr. Carmen R. Valdez is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Counseling Psychology at UW-Madison. She received her masters’ degree in Clinical Psychology from Loyola College in Maryland and her doctorate in School Psychology from the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Valdez’s primary area of interest is in community-based interventions with underserved families. She has been actively involved in Keeping Families Strong (KFS), a NIMH-funded prevention program designed to reduce the impact of parental depression on children and build family resilience and strength. She is currently refining and adapting KFS to Latino families and to evaluating the adoption of KFS in community settings. In addition to working with families with a depressed parent, Dr. Valdez is interested in assessing mental health and health providers’ level of understanding and multicultural competence with their Latino clients/patients with depression. Consistent with her interests on Latino families, Dr. Valdez is an investigator on a federally-funded study of the effects of social capital on children’s social, cognitive, and emotional development. Approximately 3,000 families from Texas and Arizona will participate in that project. Other projects include family stress and depression among college students, and the evaluation of a school-based depression prevention program. Her work has appeared in journals such as School Psychology Quarterly, Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, Cognitive Therapy and Research, Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk, and The Family Psychologist.

Selected Publications

• Valdez, C. R., Carlson, C., & Zanger, D. (2005). Evidence-based parent training and family interventions for school behavior change. School Psychology Quarterly, 20 (4), p. 403-433.
• Rude, S. S., Valdez, C. R., Odom, S., & Ibrahimi, A. (2003). Negativity of interpretation predicts depression. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 27 (4), p. 415-429
• Holliday, S., Navarrete, G., Hermosillo, D., Valdez, C., Saklad, A., Escalante, A., & Brey, R. (2003). Validating a computer-administered neuropsychological test battery for mixed ethnic Lupus patients: Lupus, 12 (9), p. 697-703.
• Brey, R. L., Holliday, S. L., Saklad, A. R., Navarrete, M. G., Hermosillo-Romo, D., Stallworth, C. L., Valdez, C. R., Escalante, A., Del Rincon, I., Gronseth, G., Rhine, C. B., Padilla, P., McGlasson, D. (2002). Neuropsychiatric syndromes in Lupus: Prevalence using standardized definitions. Neurology, 58 (8), p. 1214-1220.
• Christenson, S., Carlson, C., & Valdez, C. R. (2002). Evidence-based interventions: Opportunities, challenges, and cautions. In T. Kratochwill (Ed.), Evidence-based interventions in school psychology: The state of the art and future directions (Special issue). School Psychology Quarterly, 17(4), p. 466-474.

Contact Carmen Valdez