Dr. Tami Sullivan’s research program focuses on both individual and system-level factors that influence the well-being of women who experience intimate partner violence (IPV). Her naturalistic studies employ micro-longitudinal designs to explore how daily experiences and behaviors unfold in natural environments. Her interventional studies promote relationship health, resilience and recovery from trauma and substance use. Integral to her approach is community-partnered research, which centers women who have experienced IPV and the practitioners who support them.
At the individual level, Dr. Sullivan’s research advances understanding of factors that foster resilience, such as self-efficacy, empowerment, and hope, as well as factors that heighten the risk for negative outcomes, including posttraumatic stress, substance use, and sexual risk behaviors. She studies the impact of substance use, criminal justice, and other service system’s responses on women’s emotional and physical wellbeing, including the ways in which it promotes or impedes their safety, recovery and resilience.
Dr. Sullivan’s development of community-based and service-system interventions includes a peer-led support group, a single-session intervention to promote hope, and a stepped-care behavioral health intervention aimed at reducing trauma symptoms to enhance retention in opioid use disorder care. She disseminates findings to researchers, practitioners, and the public through various formats, including practitioner briefs, blogs, infographics, webinars, and popular media, to accelerate the translation of research into changes in practice and policy.
She is a licensed psychologist with experience across a range of treatment settings, from inpatient and outpatient programs for mental health and substance use disorders to community programs for women who experience IPV and court-mandated interventions for offenders.