Sneha Thamotharan headshot
Assistant Professor
Clinical Health Psychology
sneha.thamotharan@ucdenver.edu

Expertise Areas:

Health Disparities/Health Equity; Pediatric Health Services; Preventive Medicine; Youth of Color; Minority Youth; Pediatric Psychology

Dr. Thamotharan is accepting students for the 2021-2022 academic year. Applications from women and members of underrepresented groups, broadly defined, are strongly encouraged.

Postdoctoral Fellowship, Alpert Medical School of Brown University, 2016-2019

Ph.D., Clinical Psychology, Texas A&M University, 2016

Predoctoral Internship, Alpert Medical School of Brown University, 2015-2016

M.A., Psychology, University of Houston- Clear Lake, 2010

B.A.S., Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology, Political Science, University of California-

            Los Angeles, 2008

 

Dr. Thamotharan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Colorado Denver. She is a provisionally licensed, pediatric psychologist with a background in integrated primary care and pediatric patient-centered medical homes. She is committed to minority health and health equity. She has focused her clinical practice on providing behavioral health services to underserved youth, which has informed her approach to clinical research.

Specifically, she focuses on health behaviors with significant health and healthcare disparities impacting adolescents, most prominently sexual and reproductive health. She conducts culturally and gender responsive, preventive health services research to foster accessible and high-quality healthcare and alleviate disparities among youth of color, in particular young women of color. She utilizes a socioecological approach and develops, evaluates, and implements tools and interventions on patient, provider, and systems levels. This includes digital health technologies and patient-centered care models. Her research uses mixed-methods and is interdisciplinary in nature, with collaborators from pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, family-medicine, emergency medicine, and public health.

  1. Hahn, H., Kalnitsky, S., Haines, N., Thamotharan, S., Beauchaine, T.P., & Ahn, W.Y. (In press). Delay Discounting of Protected Sex: Relationship Type and Sexual Orientation Influence Sexual Risk Behavior. Archives of Sexual Behavior.
  2. Barker, D.H., Enimil, A., Galarraga, O., Bosomtwe, D., Mensah, N., Thamotharan, S., Henenbeng, E., Brown, L.K., & Kwara, A. (in press). In-Clinic Adolescent Peer-Group Support for Engagement in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Feasibility and Acceptability Trial. Journal of the International Association of Providers of AIDS Care.
  3. Brayboy, L.M., McCoy, K., Thamotharan, S., Zhu, E., Gil, G., & Houck, C. (2018). Use of technology in sexual health education especially among minority adolescent girls in the United States. Current Opinions in Obstetrics & Gynecology, 30(5), 305-309.
  4. Thamotharan, S., Hall, S., Hahn, H., Blake, J., & Fields, S. (2018). Contextualizing gender and acculturative influences on Asian Indian sexual initiation during adolescence. Sexuality & Culture, 22, 380-390.
  5. Hahn, H., You, D.D., Sferra, M., Hubbard, M., Thamotharan, S., & Fields, S. (2018). Is it too soon to meet? Examining differences in geosocial networking app use and sexual risk behavior of emerging adults. Sexuality & Culture, 22, 1-21.