People

Courtney D. Cogburn, Director

Courtney D. Cogburn

Director
  • cc3803@columbia.edu

  • Dr. Courtney D. Cogburn joined the faculty at the Columbia University School of Social Work in July 2014 as an assistant professor and she was also invited to join the Faculty of the Columbia Population Research Center. Her research aims to characterize and evaluate the function of toxic social environments in producing racial disparities in health and disease. She is particularly interested in examining associations between multiple dimensions of racism and stress-related disease as well as in identifying psychosocial processes that attenuate those effects. In one line of research, Dr. Cogburn is using data science techniques to develop a model and measure of media-based cultural racism and psychophysiological approaches to examine the effects of exposure to cultural racism on physiological, psychological and behavioral stress responses. She is also working closely with a community health center and global non-profit to educate and build community activism around social and structural inequities and health.

    Dr. Cogburn completed the Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Scholar program at Harvard University. She received her Ph.D. in Education and Psychology as well as her MSW from the University of Michigan. She received her BA in Psychology from the University of Virginia.

    Her current research projects examine:

    • the effects of cultural racism in the media on physiological, psychological and behavioral stress
    • reactivity and moderating effects of cognitive appraisal processes;
      • the role of structural racism in producing disease risk; and
    • chronic psychosocial stress exposure and related implications for understanding Black/White disparities in cardiovascular health and disease between early and late adulthood.

    At the end of 2014, Dr. Cogburn received an award from the Provost's Grants Program for Junior Faculty Who Contribute to the Diversity Goals of the University for a project titled "Black Face to Ferguson: A Mixed Methodological Examination of Media Racism, Media Activism and Health."

    In addition to her academic research, Dr. Cogburn works with the Southern Jamaica Plain Health Center at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston andis a senior advisor at the International Center Advocates Against Discrimination in NYC to educate and build community activism around issues of racism and health.

    Before coming to Columbia in July 2014, Dr. Cogburn was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholar at the Harvard School of Public Health. She received her BA in Psychology from the University of Virginia, MSW from the University of Michigan School of Social Work and PhD in the Combined Program in Education and Psychology from the University of Michigan.