Julie Poehlmann

Dr. Poehlmann is a nationally and internationally recognized scholar on children with incarcerated parents. As a child clinical psychologist, she seeks to facilitate social justice for young children and their families and to understand and promote resilience processes while decreasing risk and trauma exposure. To do this, she studies the health and social, emotional, and cognitive development of high-risk infants and young children and their families, including children with incarcerated parents, children raised by their grandparents, and children born preterm, including examining the intergenerational transmission of risk, trauma, resilience, and healing. She uses both quantitative and qualitative methods in her work, especially observational methods that focus on young children and families in their natural contexts as well as physiological measures. She also designs and evaluates interventions for children and their parents, including interdisciplinary multimodal interventions that can be used in the criminal justice system and contemplative practices aimed at decreasing stress and increasing well-being in children and families.

Her current studies include the Healthy Brain and Child Development Study (HBCD) and the Enhanced Visits Program for children with incarcerated parents.