.jpeg.jpg "Felicitas A. Huber, PhD photo")
Postdoctoral Fellow
Washington University in St Louis
My name is Felicitas Huber and I am a clinical psychologist and current postdoctoral fellow at the Washington University in St. Louis. The overarching focus of my research program is to examine biopsychosocial determinants of chronic pain and associated substance use issues with a particular emphasis on women's health. Outside of examining predictors of buprenorphine treatment retention for maternal opioid use disorder, I am currently examining the impact of stigma surrounding migraine on disease and disability outcomes.
During my Ph.D. studies in clinical psychology at the University of Tulsa, my research involved characterizing biopsychosocial factors underlying the increased chronic pain risk of Native Americans. We characterized the role of psychological processes (adversity, pain-related anxiety, catastrophizing, stress) and social factors (discrimination, neighborhood disadvantage) on pain and pain-related processes (i.e., sleep, cardiometabolic markers of allostatic load) within the Native American pain disparity. During my APA-accredited, 1-year internship at the University of Mississippi Medical Center (a required part of doctoral training for clinical psychologists) I expanded my research into social determinants of health, this time with a focus on examining associations between social factors, health behaviors, and pain in African Americans under the mentorship of Dr. Matthew Morris. During rotations at the Center of Integrated Health and at an addiction treatment center I also gained clinically relevant insights into chronic pain and the relationship between pain and substance use.
