Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior

Ardhys De Leon graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in psychology from the University of South Florida in 2018. In 2019, she joined the clinical psychology doctoral program at the University of Central Florida (UCF) and was awarded the McKnight Doctoral Fellowship. Under the mentorship of Dr. Robert Dvorak, Ardhys’ research focused on investigating and mitigating health compromising factors (i.e., sociocultural stressors) that impact alcohol use among vulnerable populations using mobile interventions. She received the Research Society on Alcohol Small Research Grant and the APA Division 50 Society of Addiction Psychology Student Research Grant, which funded her dissertation on the impact of perceived discrimination on mood, alcohol craving, and alcohol outcomes among Hispanic/Latinx individuals using ecological momentary assessment. In 2023, she was accepted into the NIAAA sponsored Enhancing Diversity in Alcohol Research (EDAR) Training Program at MUSC. In 2024, Ardhys began her clinical psychology pre-doctoral internship within the Adult Track at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. During internship, she worked with Dr. Hayley Treloar Padovano on the implementation of a Center for Addiction & Disease Risk Exacerbation (CADRE) grant focused on the delivery of a brief personalized motivational intervention for Hispanic/Latinx drinkers at risk of metabolic alcohol-associated liver disease in English and Spanish. She is thrilled to continue her work with Dr. Treloar Padovano as a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies at Brown University. Ardhys is extremely grateful to her friends, family, research mentors, and clinical supervisors, for their guidance and support.