Dr. Sharon Dekel is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and the Director of the Postpartum Traumatic Stress Disorders Research Program at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and the Dekel Lab at HMS and MGH. She earned a PhD in Clinical Psychology from Columbia University and completed her clinical internship training at Columbia Medical Center followed by a research postdoctoral fellowship in a leading international Trauma lab. Dr. Dekel is also a licensed clinical psychologist.

Dr. Dekel has been studying biological and psychological factors associated with ways of coping with stressful events. Her work on the positive outlook of traumatic stress is considered pioneering in the field. Rather than viewing trauma outcomes as exclusively negative, her studies have increased our understanding of the human capacity to thrive in the wake of trauma.

Since joining Massachusetts General Hospital in 2013, Dr. Dekel has expanded her research with the investigation of childbirth as a potentially traumatic event (see Dr. Dekel’s publication record). This represents a new frontier in trauma studies. She developed a multidisciplinary research model involving both the Mass General Psychiatric and OB/GYN Departments that has allowed her to study over 8,000 postpartum women. Dr. Dekel is defining the overlooked condition of childbirth-related post-traumatic stress disorder (CB-PTSD) and working to better understand the transmission of the disorder's effects to the offspring. By studying childbirth as a model of traumatic stress, she hopes to translate the knowledge gained to improve clinical care of trauma-exposed individuals.

Dr. Dekel is a two-time recipient of the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation's Young Investigator Award, the MGH's Executive Committee On Research ISF funding, and the Harvard Mind Brain Behavior Faculty Award. She also received Mass General’s Claflin Distinguished Scholar Award for Women in Science, and is a recent recipient of Postpartum Support International Susan A. Hickman Memorial Research Award for excellence in scientific work on postpartum mental health. She has been continually supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Dekel is on the Editorial Boards of PLOS ONE, Archive of Women's Mental Health, the Annals of Depression and Anxiety, Frontiers in Psychiatry, Frontiers in Psychology, where she edited a special volume on childbirth-related PTSD, and the journal Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, the American Psychological Association's leading traumatic stress journal. Dr. Dekel serves on the Board of the International Marcé Society, the largest organization supporting perinatal mental health. She is also the founding Chair of the Postpartum Trauma Special Interest Group of the International Society of Traumatic Stress Studies, which is the largest professional organization in the field.