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Catherine M Corbin, PhD

Assistant Research Professor, School of Education, School Psychology, and Early Childhood Studies
College of Education, University of Florida
  • Biography
  • Projects
  • Publications

Cathy Corbin, Ph.D., is an Assistant Research Professor in the University of Florida’s College of Education and the Prevention and Intervention Network (PIN). For three years, she was an IES Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the School Mental Health Assessment, Research, & Training (SMART) Center. Dr. Corbin’s research focuses on understanding teachers’ psychological adjustment and teacher-student relationships as multifaceted and co-developing classroom processes, particularly among historically minoritized teachers and students. She is also interested in individual students’ experiences in classrooms; how, why, and under what circumstances they may deviate from what all students are exposed to; and what implications that holds for classroom functioning, teacher wellbeing, and students’ social, emotional, and behavioral development. Leveraging an ecological and interdisciplinary approach, her long-term goal is to blend applied developmental and implementation sciences to most effectively bring evidence-based social-emotional practices and programs to teachers and students.

The HELM project will adapt and test an existing leadership-focused implementation strategy (Leadership and Organizational Change for Implementation; https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s13012-014-0192-y) for use with elementary school principals in buildings where universal social, emotional, and behavioral program are being implemented. For more information about this project, click here.
This project will iteratively develop and pilot a brief professional development training to enhance teachers' skills in establishing, maintaining, and restoring relationships with high school students, particularly those from marginalized racial/ethnic groups.
The first year of this project will develop a taxonomy, or list with definitions and examples, of possible ripple effects that might result from common strategies used to implement children’s mental health services. This taxonomy could be used by researchers, implementers, and others in implementation planning and monitoring efforts. The second year of this project will test the feasibility of developing a pragmatic measure of one ripple effect.
(non-research) The SMART Center Postdoctoral Research Training Program in School Mental Health is funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute for Education Sciences (IES).The fellowship’s areas of focus align with those of the SMART Center and include research-based school behavioral health strategies and policies, implementation science, educational equity, clinical research methodology, and understanding and reducing ethnic and racial disparities.
Centering School Leaders’ Expertise: Usability Evaluation of a Leadership-Focused Implementation Strategy to Support Tier 1 Programs in Schools(2024)School Mental Health
The incremental association of implementation leadership and school personnel burnout beyond transformational leadership(2023)School PsychologyAdvance online publication:
Using Stakeholder Input to Guide Data Visualization and Reporting to Promote Evidence-based Practice Use in Public Schools(2023)Global Implementation Research and Applications3 (2):99-111.
The Interaction Between General and Strategic Leadership and Climate on Their Multilevel Associations with Implementer Attitudes Toward Universal Prevention Programs for Youth Mental Health: A Cross-Sectional Study(2022)Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research50 (3):427-449.
Teacher perceptions of implementation climate related to feasibility of implementing schoolwide positive behavior supports and interventions(2022)School Mental Health14 (4):1057-1069.
Expect the unexpected: A qualitative study of the ripple effects of children’s mental health services implementation efforts(2022)Implementation Research and Practice3:
Leading the charge in the education sector: Development and validation of the School Implementation Leadership Scale (SILS)(2022)Implementation Science17 (1):
Protocol for a hybrid type 2 cluster randomized trial of trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy and a pragmatic individual-level implementation strategy.(2021)Implementation Science16 (1):
Correlates of change in elementary students’ perceptions of interactions with their teacher(2020)Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology69:1-11.
The role of teacher-student relationships in predicting teachers’ personal accomplishment and emotional exhaustion(2019)Journal of School Psychology77:1-12.