Cynthia A. Gerhardt, PhD is the recipient of the Janet Orttung-Morrow, MD and Grant Morrow, III, MD Endowed Chair in Pediatric Behavioral Health, Director of the Center for Biobehavioral Health at The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, and Professor of Pediatrics and Psychology at The Ohio State University. Dr. Gerhardt graduated from The Ohio State University with a Bachelor of Science and received her PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Vermont. She completed a pre-doctoral internship and post-doctoral fellowship at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, where she was a faculty member before joining Nationwide Children’s Hospital in 2003. Dr. Gerhardt is regarded internationally as an expert in risk and resilience factors associated with family adjustment to stress, particularly life-threatening illnesses like childhood cancer. She has published over 140 papers and book chapters and has received multiple grants from the National Institutes of Health, the American Cancer Society, and other national foundations to support her research. Notably, Dr. Gerhardt contributed to the development of international standards for psychosocial care for families of children with cancer, which have been endorsed by leading organizations around the world. In recognition of her work, she received the Dennis Drotar Distinguished Research Award in 2016 from the American Psychological Association Division 54: Society of Pediatric Psychology. Dr. Gerhardt has been actively involved in the mentoring of students and trainees in her lab for 20 years and was awarded the OSU Department of Pediatrics Outstanding Faculty Mentor in 2018 for excellence in teaching.
