Meghan Marsac, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Faculty Associate
Meghan Marsac, PhD, is a faculty associate at the Center on Trauma and Children and an Associate Professor in the College of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics at the University of Kentucky. She is a pediatric psychologist with expertise in promoting adjustment and preventing posttraumatic stress in children with medical conditions and their parents. Clinically, she implements evidence-based practices to facilitate families' management of medical treatment and emotional adjustment to challenging diagnoses and medical procedures. In addition, Dr. Marsac specializes in training medical teams in the implementation of trauma-informed medical care. Dr. Marsac’s program of research centers on medical trauma includes conducting studies to identify predictors of emotional and physical outcomes in the context of acute or chronic medical conditions, developing and validating assessment tools, and creating and evaluating programs to promote recovery and/or adjustment to medical conditions in children and families. Dr. Marsac is also an Associate Fellow of the Center for Injury Research and Prevention at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. She has served as a Principal Investigator for several projects examining how children and parents cope with stressful medical events (asthma, dental procedures, cancer, sickle cell disease, injury and trauma). The overarching goals of research are to advance the understanding of potential un-malleable screening variables (biological), as well as malleable factors (psychological, environmental) to target in PTSD preventive interventions. Additionally, Dr. Marsac and her research team are conducting several studies evaluating preventive programs for psychological symptoms in children with medical conditions (such as Coping Coach and Cellie Coping Kit).