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Autumn Kujawa

Associate Professor of Psychology and Human Development
Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences; Vanderbilt Brain Institute Training Faculty; Vanderbilt Kennedy Center Member

Autumn Kujawa, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Psychology and Human Development at Vanderbilt University and the director of the Mood, Emotion, & Development Lab. She earned her Ph.D. from Stony Brook University and completed her clinical internship and postdoctoral fellowship in the neuroscience of mental health at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Kujawa's research aims to reduce the burden of mood disorders on youth and families. In particular, she examines how people process and respond to emotions, how alterations in emotional processing contribute to mood disorders in families, and how this knowledge can be translated to improve interventions. Her work focuses on a range of emotions, including reward responsiveness, threat reactivity and regulation, and sensitivity to social feedback. Dr. Kujawa takes a multimethod approach, incorporating physiological, brain circuit, and behavioral measures. Dr. Kujawa has been recognized as a Rising Star by the Association for Psychological Science, received an Early Career Award from the Society for Psychophysiological Research, and has been awarded research funding from the National Institute of Mental Health, Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, Klingenstein Third Generation Foundation, and American Psychological Foundation

Lab Website

Representative Publications

Long, Y., Bean, C. A. L., Venanzi, L., Boldwyn, E., Dao, A., Dickey, L., Jackson, M., Mueller, R., Pegg, S., Winglass, M., Weis, V., & Kujawa, A. (2025). A pilot randomized controlled trial of a brief intervention targeting positive valence systems function to prevent internalizing symptoms in college students. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 93, 281-292.

Cárdenas, E .F., Jackson, M., Garon-Bissonnette, J., Humphreys, K. L., & Kujawa, A. (2025). Social reward responsiveness as a moderator of the association between perceived bonding with infants and depressive symptoms in postpartum women. Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Neuroscience, 25, 1181-1191.

Kujawa, A. (2024). Reduced reward responsiveness and depression vulnerability: Consideration of social contexts and implications for intervention. Psychophysiology, 61, e14528.

Burkhouse, K. L., Dao, A., Argiros, A., Granros, M., Cárdenas, E. F., Dickey, L., Feurer, C., Hill, K. H., Pegg, S., Venanzi, L., & Kujawa, A. (2023). Targeting positive valence systems function in children of mothers with depressive symptoms: A pilot randomized trial of an RDoC-informed preventive intervention. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 168, 104384.

Dickey, L, Pegg, S., Cárdenas, E. F., Green, H., Dao, A., Waxmonsky, J., Pérez-Edgar, K., & Kujawa, A. (2023). Neural predictors of improvement with cognitive behavioral therapy for adolescent depression: An examination of reward responsiveness and emotion regulation. Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology, 51, 1069-1083.

Burkhouse, K. L., & Kujawa, A. (2023). Annual Research Review: Emotion processing in offspring of mothers with depression diagnoses - A systematic review of neural and physiological research. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 64, 583-607.

Bettis, A. H., Benningfield, M. M., Dao, A., Dickey, L., Pegg, S., Venanzi, L., & Kujawa, A. (2022). Self-injurious thoughts and behaviors and alterations in positive valence systems: A systematic review of the literature. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 156, 579-593.

Dickey, L., West, M., Pegg, S. Green, H., & Kujawa, A. (2021). Neurophysiological responses to interpersonal emotional images prospectively predict the impact of COVID-19 pandemic-related stress on internalizing symptoms. Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging.

Pegg, S., Arfer, K. B., & Kujawa, A. (2021). Altered reward responsiveness in depression: An examination of social and monetary reward domains and interactions with rejection sensitivity. Journal of Affective Disorders. 

Kujawa, A., Green, H., Compas, B. E., Dickey, L., & Pegg, S. (2020). Exposure to COVID-19 pandemic stress: Associations with depression and anxiety in emerging adults in the U.S. Depression and Anxiety, 37, 1280-1288.

 

 

Honors

Society for a Science of Clinical Psychology (SSCP) Mentoring Impact Award (2025)

Chancellor Faculty Fellow (2024-2026)

Margaret Cuninggim Women’s Center Mentoring Award (2024)

Society for Psychophysiological Research Early Career Award (2023)

American Psychological Foundation John and Polly Sparks Early Career Grant for Psychologists Investigating Serious Emotional Disturbance (2021)

Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (NARSAD) Young Investigator (2019, 2023)

Klingenstein Third Generation Foundation Fellowship (2017)

Association for Psychological Science Rising Star (2016)