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Timothy A. Allen PhD

  • Assistant Professor

I received my Bachelor of Arts in psychology from Colgate University in 2010 and subsequently earned a PhD in Developmental Psychopathology and Clinical Sciences from the University of Minnesota in 2016. I completed my clinical internship at Northwestern University, and worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health prior to joining the Dombrovski Lab. My program of research integrates longitudinal, neurobiological, and psychometric methods to identify and understand the mechanisms that contribute to variation in maladaptive personality traits, including antagonism and negative affect. I am also interested in issues related to psychiatric nosology, and have conducted research examining whether hierarchical, dimensional trait models can effectively address limitations of the current categorical diagnostic system.

    Education & Training

  • Postdoctoral: Translational Neuroscience, University of Pittsburgh Clinical Psychology, Pennsylvania State University Clinical Psychology, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health
  • Internship: Clinical Psychology, Northwestern University
  • PHD: Child Clinical Psychology, Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota
Research Interests

Dimensional psychopathology; Anxiety and irritability; Modeling aversive learning:

Dispositional Negativity and the Pavlovian Control of Active and Passive Defensive Behavior

Selected Research Publications & Products

  1. Allen TA, Schreiber AM, Hall NT, Hallquist MN. (In press) From description to explanation: Integrating across multiple levels of analysis to inform neuroscientific accounts of dimensional personality pathology. J Pers Disord.
  2. Allen TA, Dombrovski AY, Soloff PH, Hallquist MN. (2020) Borderline personality disorder: Stress reactivity or stress generation? A prospective dimensional study. Psychol Med, 38(9), 12311239.
  3. Allen TA, DeYoung CG, Bagby RM, Pollock BG. (2020) A hierarchical integration of normal and abnormal personality dimensions: Structure and predictive validity in a heterogeneous sample of psychiatric outpatients. Assessment. Jun;27(4):643-56.
  4. Allen TA, Lam RW, Milev R, Rizvi SJ, Frey BN, MacQueen GM, Mller DJ, Uher R, Kennedy SH, Quilty LC. (2019) Early change in reward and punishment sensitivity as a predictor of response to antidepressant treatment for major depressive disorder: A CAN-BIND-1 report. Psychol Med. Jul;49(10):1629-1638. PubMed PMID: 30220263.
  5. Allen TA, Rueter AR, Abram SV, Brown JS, DeYoung CG. (2017) Personality and neural correlates of mentalizing ability. Eur J Pers. Nov-Dec;31(6):599-613. PubMed PMID: 29610548.

Clinical Interests

Personality pathology; Personality assessment; Transdiagnostic intervention

Education Interests

Research mentorship