Tanja Jovanovic, PhD - ADAA Board Member

Member Since 2009

Tanja Jovanovic, PhD is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences and the David and Patricia Barron Chair for PTSD Neurobiology at Wayne State University. Dr. Jovanovic's research program focuses on the interaction of traumatic experiences, neurophysiology, neuroendocrinology, and genetics in stress-related disorders in adults and children in high-risk populations. She directs the Detroit Trauma Project (www.detroittraumaproject.com), which investigates the impact that urban trauma exposure has on the brain. Her research employs psychophysiological (e.g. fear-potentiated startle, skin conductance response, heart-rate variability) and brain imaging methods (e.g. MRI, fMRI) to investigate biomarkers of risk for trauma-related psychopathology, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Her laboratory developed novel human fear conditioning, fear inhibition, and extinction paradigms for PTSD patients. Dr. Jovanovic is the lead investigator on several federally funded grants from the National Institutes of Health and has an independent investigator Award from the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation. She has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers and served on national and international grant review panels.  https://psychiatry.med.wayne.edu/profile/gr561. Dr. Jovanovic is an ADAA Board Member and a co-chair of the ADAA CDLP Program.

Dr. Jovanovic and ADAA

"I first became involved in 2008, when my mentors Kerry Ressler and Barbara Rothbaum, who were very active in ADAA, encouraged me to apply for the Travel Award.  I was fortunate to get the award in 2009, and have been coming to the ADAA conference every year since then.  I have found ADAA to be a wonderful place to network with clinicians and researchers—it is small enough to be able to get to know most members, but also bring in new mentees to the field of anxiety. It is an excellent place to learn and grow a career.  Over time I became more and more involved with ADAA and in 2015 Dr. Ressler and I were co-chairs of the conference program. I have now become more involved in mentoring trainees—after several years of being a mentor on the Career Development Leadership Program (CDLP) by ADAA, I am now one of the co-chairs of this program—this allows me to provide the kinds of career opportunities that ADAA gave me more than a decade ago. Now I bring my own mentees every year and have several receive travel awards!"

"I consider ADAA to be my scientific “home”, the membership and the community aspects of this organization have always provided a strong base for communicating my research and learning about the best approaches to studying and treating anxiety. In recent years, ADAA has also become the “home” for my lab, with many students, postdocs, research assistants, and junior faculty attending and presenting at the conference every year. I truly enjoy meeting up with outstanding colleagues in the field and being able to introduce them to my mentees. Because ADAA members are so supportive of early career clinicians and researchers it provides a unique opportunity for networking and new collaborations."

"My research is focused on trauma exposure and how it changes the brain in a way that makes individuals vulnerable for depression, anxiety, and PTSD. As an ADAA member, I have a platform in which to present my research to the community that is most invested in the same population, whether from a clinical or research perspective.  Though the conference and webinars, I am also able to learn the most up-to-date developments in trauma research."

"Last year, I moved my lab from Emory to Wayne State University in Detroit to build a program to better understand urban trauma exposure, especially during development. It has been an exciting time, and even in a short time, we have found Detroit families very interested in our research program. Detroit has been especially impacted by COVID-19, and our communities of color have been disproportionately affected.  My lab has been reaching out to our participants to survey and offer resources to those most affected by the pandemic."