Catherine Ayoub, Ed.D.

Dr. Catherine Ayoub is a forensic psychologist & nurse practitioner with strong clinical and research interests in child and family development and the impact of trauma across the life span. Dr. Ayoub serves as a senior forensic mental health expert for children and adults involved in juvenile, family, criminal and civil courts across the USA and in Latin America. She has expertise in assessment of child maltreatment (physical and sexual abuse and neglect), family conflict including divorce and custody issues, family violence, and the long term impact of childhood trauma on behavior, criminal activity, and general functioning into adulthood. Dr. Ayoub has international expertise in the assessment and treatment of disorders of deception including Munchausen by Proxy and factitious disorder. She has a long term interest in the unique nature of crimes committed by women and has experience in working on cases involving infanticide. She holds a primary appointment at Harvard Medical School through the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, and she is also active on the staff of Children’s Hospital as a senior interventionist and researcher. Dr. Ayoub has published over 75 articles and books related to child development, impact of trauma on development, parenting, mental health and educational prevention and intervention service delivery systems and related topics.

Raised in Mexico, Dr. Ayoub comes from a multicultural background and has special expertise in clinical work, program development and research with Latino families. She is an international clinical consultant to early childhood programs, legal organizations, professional organizations and governments including in Chile, Bolivia and Turkey. She has over 30 years of experience in developing, implementing, scaling up and evaluating prevention and intervention systems in health, legal and educational settings to combat risk and promote resilience with emphasis on young children and their families across cultures and communities. As past Director of the Risk and Prevention Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education she was critical in the development and implementation of this important progressive master’s program focused on multidisciplinary work with vulnerable children and adolescents.

As both an interventionist and a researcher, Dr. Ayoub is a leader in the design, implementation, and evaluation of mental health and educational programs for young at risk children and families. She is a founder of the Parent Child Center; one of the oldest child abuse prevention programs in the United States aimed as offering supportive services to at risk children at families from birth onward. Dr. Ayoub directs several research studies including a longitudinal developmental study of maltreated children and their parents, a study of Munchausen by Proxy families, and a project that explores the impact of conflicted divorce and family violence on children, and a longitudinal study of the impact of Early Head Start. She is currently working with other Harvard faculty to design, implement and evaluate programs for children birth to 6 years living in poverty for the Ministry of Education in Chile and has led a national conference on child sexual abuse for supreme court justices, prosecutors, and forensic evaluators in Chile and has provided consultation to programs for homeless children in Bolivia.