By Bri Brands 

At the time that Teresa Treat, professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, took her first abnormal psychology class as an undergraduate, there was little intersection between clinical and computational cognitive psychology—so Treat decided she was going to be the one to make a change. 

Receiving a joint PhD in clinical psychology and cognitive science from Indiana University has given Treat a unique perspective about the role of cognition in psychopathology, or the study of mental and behavioral disorders, which she now uses to research cognitive processing in sexual aggression among college students.  

Treat’s research broadly focuses on college students’ sexual judgement and decision making as it relates to substance use, sexual perpetration, sexual victimization, and satisfaction with both casual and established sexual relationships.  

On average, 20-25 percent of undergraduate women and undergraduate students who identify their gender outside the binary report that they experienced non-consensual sexual contact by either force or intoxication during college, Treat said.  

“From my perspective, this is a huge public health problem,” she said.  

Any college or university that receives federal funding is congressionally mandated to provide sexual assault prevention programs, which gives institutions more of an opportunity to develop effective programs, as opposed to a non-college setting.  

An untraditional researcher 

Treat initially came to the University of Iowa because she knew it would be a place where she was welcome, even though she didn’t fit into the traditional category of either clinical psychology or cognitive psychology.  

“Iowa’s Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences has a reputation for being a rigorous and integrative department full of outstanding, collaborative scholars,” she said. “The department's very invested in tearing down walls between areas and doing whatever they can to foster connections across departments.”  

Having the support to break down boundaries has allowed Treat to work with a colleague at Arizona State University and a former mentor at Indiana University to develop a new sexual assault prevention program.  

While the program is still in the development stages, Treat says what they have seen so far has been promising. 

“I feel very privileged to have the opportunity to explore ideas like this. It's really a passion for me to try to help make a difference in these areas.” 

In the long run, Treat hopes to incorporate diversity of sexual and gender identity into her prevention efforts.   

Traditionally, much of the sexuality research in the field has adopted a heteronormative perspective that focuses on sexual interest and encounters between men and women, and assumes that, if sexual assault took place, it only occurred because men initiated and women were victims. 

“We know that there are a broad range of sexual identities and gender identities,” Treat said. “I think one of the most important things I can do is to incorporate the diversity of sexual experiences and preferences, as well as variability in gender identities, into my work to the extent possible.”  

Service to a wider community 

As a part of her national service to the field of clinical science, Treat serves as the chair of the review committee for the Psychological Clinical Science Accreditation System (PCSAS).  

As the chair, she helps accredit top clinical psychology doctoral programs focused on producing graduates who conduct innovative and impactful clinical research and who share it broadly to advance our understanding, assessment, and treatment of public mental health. 

Treat joined the committee because, like many psychologists and mental health professionals, she noticed how limited access to high quality, evidence-based mental health care is in the United States.  

“It’s an incredible privilege to work alongside the other members of the review committee to evaluate programs and suggest ways in which they might have a greater impact. This work enhances the body of high-quality research that clinical scientists are producing, and informs our efforts to address numerous concerning and long-standing problems in public mental health.”