Francesca Belouad, MA, is a Research Psychologist in GEB-SDGE. She is responsible for administrating interviews and overseeing clinical aspects of the NIMH Family Study. Francesca has been employed as a Research Psychologist at the NIMH since 2000, when she was recruited by Dennis Charney, MD, during the formation of the Mood and Anxiety Disorders Research Program. Prior to this, she held research positions at the Section on Development Psychology at the NIMH, Outpatient Psychiatry at the Washington Veterans Medical Center, and the Department of Medical and Clinical Psychology at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.
Francesca's work has focused on the writing and submission of the original NIMH Family Study protocol and the development and selection of research measures. She currently administers headache, psychiatric, sleep, and family history interviews to adults and children at initial and follow-up time points. She conducts reviews of clinical assessments and provides direction to outside collaborators on established interview guidelines. Her research interests include sleep patterns in mood disorders and the validity of subthreshold thresholds in depression and anxiety.