Director

Dr. Courtney Beard (she/her) is a clinical psychologist with expertise in anxiety disorders and cognitive behavioral therapy. She is an Associate Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and at McLean Hospital serves as Director of the Cognition and Affect Research and Education (CARE) Laboratory, Director of Research at the Behavioral Health Partial Hospital, Co-Director of the McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School Psychology Internship Program, and Advisor to the MENTOR (Mentor, Empower, Network to Optimize Representation) program. She regularly contributes to Psychology Today through her blog "From Lab to Real World".

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Dr. Beard’s research aims to delineate cognitive and affective mechanisms underlying psychiatric disorders and to develop treatments to target these mechanisms. Her work has been continually funded by NIMH since 2008 with over 5 million in total funding. She devotes much of her time to mentoring and was the 2021 recipient of McLean Hospital's Research Mentoring award.

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Dr. Beard is dedicated to making McLean Hospital and the field of Clinical Psychology more diverse and inclusive. She has been a member of the Multicultural Psychology Consultation Team, since 2017, which provides consultation to hospital units, research labs, and other groups. MPCT aims to support clinicians conducting culturally-responsive mental health treatment. Within MPCT, Dr. Beard contributes to program evaluation efforts. In 2022, Dr. Beard co-created McLean Hospital's MENTOR program, which seeks to provide career mentorship opportunities through partnering with local universities.