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Kathy Faulkner Yates, PhD has an extensive history of providing a wide range of clinical services in a private practice setting in Houston, Texas before moving to New York City in 1987. Dr. Yates attained her doctorate in Counseling Psychology with a subspecialty in Neuropsychology from Teacher’s College, Columbia University in 1993. She received her MS degree in Health and Clinical Psychology from the University of Houston – Clear Lake Campus in 1979. As a licensed Psychologist and Neuropsychologist, Dr. Yates has widespread experience in administering, scoring, and interpreting a wide range of neuropsychological tests including traditional clinical tests, formal test batteries (such as the Halstead-Reitan and the UDS-3), as well as novel measures used in formal clinical research.
Dr. Yates began her work at NKI in 1993 when she joined the Clinical Division working in violence research with Dr. Antonio Convit, first at Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center and then at Manhattan Psychiatric Center. In 2008, after 15 years on Ward’s Island and when her Program Evaluation of the STAIR program was successfully completed, Dr. Yates moved to NYU Medical Center where she began working again with Dr. Convit in obesity research at the BODY Lab (Banishing Obesity and Diabetes in Youth). The focus of this research has been to explore the relationships between excess weight and associated weight-related medical sequelae on both brain and cognition.
In addition to her work in obesity, Dr. Yates also is a Co-Investigator on a number of multi-site, funded studies that have subcontracts with NKI with a focus on risk factors for pathological cognitive decline as well as for novel treatment approaches in MCI. In her capacity as the supervising Neuropsychologist with Dr. Ricardo Osorio (Healthy Brain Aging and Sleep Center [HBASC]) and Dr. Dan Iosifescu (Mood Disorders & Cognition [MDC]), among others, she develops tailored neuropsychological and psychological test batteries to address study aims as well as coordinates and harmonizes data collection across sites.
Dr. Yates is invested in and interested in the training and mentoring of a new generation of multidisciplinary researchers at the interface of medicine, neurocognition and neuroscience. Accepted students are trained and mentored by Dr. Yates during a year-long commitment participating in various aspects of funded research studies. During her career in clinical research, she has mentored several hundred master’s students from major universities, many of whom have completed their PhDs and now work in clinical research or academic settings. In addition to her supervisory role with master’s level externs, she also is involved in the mentoring of many NYU medical students who complete their research concentration or gap year in our laboratory.
In the past, Dr. Yates served as the Deputy Director of The BODY Project, a community service organization.