Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior

Sajida Yasmeen completed her B.S. and M.Phil. in psychology from the University of Karachi, Pakistan. Her research focused on understanding low self-esteem and aggression as risk factors for substance use and delinquency among adolescents. After immigrating to the United States, she worked as a research assistant at the Human Emotions Research Lab at George Mason University (GMU) and assisted in developing a jail-based computerized intervention to reduce post-incarceration substance use. After a year, she joined the Clinical Psychology Ph.D. program at GMU under mentorship of Dr. June Tangney. Her program of research focused on understanding the relationship of serious mental illness and risky behaviors, development of technology-based interventions for substance use disorders (SUDs) and understanding the role of sociocultural factors in recovery from SUDs. She received her M.A. from GMU in 2021. Her research on the development of technology-based interventions for SUDs was funded by an NSF-sponsored National Research Traineeship (NRT) fellowship. She was also the winner of GMU’s 2024 College of Humanities and Social Sciences Graduate Dean’s Challenge Award for her research work. During her clinical psychology pre-doctoral internship at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, she worked with Dr. Langdon on understanding mechanisms of action of a digitally delivered distress tolerance intervention in reducing opioid cravings. While at internship, she completed rotations in a partial hospital program, CARS, and PCBH. Sajida is joining the DC VA Medical Center as a postdoctoral fellow and will continue integrating clinical and research work to improve treatment for people with SUDs.