Profile

Deanna Linville is a Research Associate Professor at the Center for Equity Promotion, a research center within the College of Education. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist as well as a clinical member and approved supervisor with the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT). Linville's research interests include reducing health disparities and barriers to mental healthcare access, family health promotion and eating disorder prevention and treatment interventions.

Linville received specialized training in medical family therapy (collaborative family healthcare) through her doctoral fellowship at University of Chicago-Chicago Center for Family Health. During this fellowship, Linville worked at three medical sites: MacNeal Family Practice Center, Gilda's Club, and the Chicago Center for Family Health and provided therapy for individuals, couples, families, and groups dealing with acute and chronic illness, disabilities, and loss. This training background still influences her current intervention research, clinical supervision and pedagogy.

Linville has worked as a mental health and relational psychotherapist for the last two decades, often providing her clinical and consultation services for families navigating the challenges of eating disorders and chronic health conditions. These applied experiences inspire and inform her clinical intervention research.

Currently, Linville is working on several funded research projects. First, she is evaluating the effectiveness of the Family Body Project for preventing eating disorders among female-identified teens and their caregiver(s). Second, she and Dr. Saralyn Ruff are partnering with A Home Within, a national nonprofit organization that provides pro bono mental health services for former and current foster youth on several research studies. They are using community-based action research methodology to understand the foster youth community mental health needs. In addition, Linville and Ruff are taking a multi-pronged approach to evaluating the effectiveness of A Home Within for mitigating barriers to mental healthcare access and improving psychosocial health outcomes for former and current foster youth.