*Clarissa Ong

Emma Eccles Jones College of Education and Human Services

Psychology

Clarissa Ong is a doctoral student in the Combined Clinical/Counseling Psychology program at Utah State University (USU). She has been working with Dr. Michael Twohig in the ACT Research Lab for the past four years. Her research interests include developing and testing process-based cognitive-behavioral therapies (e.g., acceptance and commitment therapy;ACT) for anxiety and obsessive-compulsive related concerns, evaluating the psychometric quality of assessment tools, and examining processes of change and other variables that influence treatment response. Broadly, she strives for her work to reduce human suffering and enhance well being by increasing availability and accessibility of empirically supported interventions. Clarissa is an active clinical researcher and has written 31 peer-reviewed publications and five book chapters. In addition, she has presented on her work in national conferences with two talks as part of research symposia and ten poster presentations. She has also given workshops on ACT and anxiety as part of USU’s annual Mental Health Is No Joke week and for the Women’s Leadership Initiative on campus.Clarissa hopes to develop her line of research by focusing on overlapping elements across evidence-based interventions and theoretical orientations to increase parsimony and accessibility of clinical research, ultimately improving effectiveness and efficiency of available interventions.