Dr. Clarke is a psychiatric epidemiologist and research statistician as well as the Director of Research at the American Psychiatric Association and an adjunct faculty in the Department of Mental Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is the president-elect of the International Academy of Suicide Research, a certified mental health counselor and a founding member of the Friends of NIMH, an advocacy group for ongoing research funding for NIMH, including research on diversity, disparities, and suicide. Dr. Clarke brings her clinical, research, public health and advocacy background to the area of suicide prevention and research. Dr. Clarke’s passion and commitment to suicide prevention, both personally and professionally, have been central to her life’s work.
Having had the experience of supporting friends and family members who have struggled with suicidal thoughts and behaviors with and without associated mental disorders as well as losing friends to suicide, she has dedicated her career to research, education, and advocacy in mental health and substance use disorders, as well as suicide prevention. As the Managing Director of Research and Senior Epidemiologist/Research Statistician at the APA, Dr. Clarke has conducted diverse research projects that focused on 1) understanding the root causes of mental and substance use disorders and suicide thoughts and behaviors; 2) understanding the ethno-racial differences in the pathways to suicide and suicidal behaviors; 3) improving patient-centered care, 4) enhancing the quality of mental health services, and 5) addressing disparities in mental health care including perinatal mental health.
Dr. Clarke has and continue to play a pivotal role in updates to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM) such as advocating for the inclusion of suicidal thoughts and behaviors across mental disorder diagnoses, advancing the use of suicide assessment and safety planning in routine clinical care, and supporting the need for cultural formulation and sensitivity in understanding mental disorders and suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Over the past 15 years, She has mentored the research career development of undergraduate and graduate research fellows as well as early research career psychiatrists, with a focus on strengthening the presence marginalized groups in the suicide prevention and clinician-scientist workforce. She is the Scientific Director of the NIDA-funded Research Colloquium for Junior Psychiatrist Investigators, a program that provides a 1-year research training and mentorship to early research career psychiatrists with interest in neuroscience, clinical psychobiology, treatment, alcohol and other substance use, health services and health disparities, and military/veterans mental health (i.e., TBI, Suicide, and PTSD) research. She has published extensively in these areas of interest and has been funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the Department of Health and Human Services through the Center for Medicare and Medicaid, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) through the CDC Foundation, and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).