Crissa Draper
Associate Professor
Biography
Dr. Crissa Draper is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology and Co-Director of the Undergraduate Program at Utah State. She engages in robust scientifically guided curriculum development in areas of clinical, social and general psychology, and in developing and implementing scalable research training for undergraduate students.
Dr. Draper directs the LEND Lab (Loneliness, Estrangement, and Narrative Dialogues), where undergraduate researchers investigate how language, culture, and social media may shape wellness - or the lack thereof. Recent projects examine how “therapy-speak”—the popularization of psychological terms like trauma, gaslighting, and boundaries may relate to loneliness, estrangement, and wellbeing.
A clinical psychologist by training, Dr. Draper has long worked at the intersection of behavioral science and technology. Her early scholarship developed stepped-care and e-health interventions for mental health issues across a spectrum of intensity and topography from PTSD and borderline personality disorder to complicated grief to caregiver burnout. More recently, she mentors undergraduates in projects that tie together primarily in their ability to get undergraduates passionately engaged in the research process, such as studies on bias reduction, equity in higher education, and psychological myths and misconceptions.
Across all of her work, Dr. Draper emphasizes rigorous scientific thinking and methodology applied to real-world problems of learning, connection, resilience, and meaning in contemporary life.