The Johns Hopkins Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation offers a one-year or two-year postdoctoral research and clinical fellowship program in pain psychology. The fellowship provides the opportunity to develop clinical and research experience in chronic pain intervention. This program is not APA accredited.

This fellowship is recruiting for the 2024 - 2026 training cycle, contingent on funding.

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Program Information | Qualifications | How to Apply | Contact Us | Program Director

Program Information

Our pain psychology fellowship offers focused training in pain psychology research and practice. The breakdown of clinical and research responsibilities is approximately 50/50, which is flexible depending on the fellow’s interest and available funding.

Primary research opportunities include prospective research that aims to understand the transition from acute to chronic pain in adults who sustain major orthopaedic injuries, including assessing pain processing using quantitative sensory testing (QST) and investigating affective predictors of persistent pain post injury. A primary role for the pain psychology fellow will be obtaining training in and delivering Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy (EAET) to patients with persistent pain 6-months post-injury. Other research opportunities include secondary data analysis from existing databases, systematic review and meta-analysis, electronic medical record research and collaboration with other faculty colleagues at Johns Hopkins University.

Primary clinical opportunities include applying evidence-based approaches for treating chronic pain conditions and completing pre-surgical evaluations in an outpatient setting. Pain supervisors have expertise in CBT, MI, ACT, EAET, and mindfulness-based approaches for treating chronic pain. Additional formal training opportunities will be available depending on the fellow’s interest.

Johns Hopkins is an excellent environment for pain psychology training. The fellow will join a vibrant community of psychology trainees across four psychology training tracks offered in PM&R (rehabilitation psychology, neuropsychology, multiple sclerosis, pain psychology). Johns Hopkins is home to dozens of pain researchers across schools and institutions, and the fellow will have the opportunity to join this community via weekly institution-wide grand rounds and ongoing collaborations. The training plan will be individualized based on the fellow’s interests. The fellow will be primarily supervised and mentored by Rachel Aaron, Ph.D., M.A. Other members of the core mentorship team include Stephen Wegener, Ph.D., M.A. (research), Fenan Rassu, Ph.D., M.S. (research), and Nicole Schechter, Psy.D. (clinical). There are additional opportunities for collaboration with our numerous cross-disciplinary collaborators.

How to Apply

All application materials must be submitted through our portal. Materials include:

• Letter of interest (no longer than two single-spaced pages) that includes:
  • A description of your career goals
  • How your interests/goals fit specifically in our program(s)
  • A statement describing the completion status of your dissertation and anticipated date of graduation
• Curriculum vitae (CV)
• Three professional letters of reference (submitted by your referees through the online portal)
• Unofficial graduate transcripts (official transcripts will be requested if an offer is extended)
• APPCN doctoral training verification form (neuropsychology fellowship applicants only)

More instructions will be provided through the online portal.

Contact Us

For general inquiries, email [email protected]. For program-specific questions, contact the program director below.