Office Address: 240A Gilmer Hall
Lab Website: Social Justice in Disability and Health Lab

Biography

Paul Perrin is a Professor of Data Science and Psychology at the University of Virginia and a core faculty member in the Clinical Psychology PhD Program. He believes that disparities in the context of disability and health are one of the most shocking and inhumane forms of oppression and that the academic and medical communities have a central role to play in their alleviation. A combination of modern analytic techniques and community-based participatory research approaches are key tools for identifying the sources of—and potential solutions to—these disparities. With this aim, his research area of “social justice in disability and health” encompasses three facets: (a) cultural, familial, and international approaches to disability rehabilitation and adjustment, particularly in medically underserved and minority populations with neurological conditions; (b) social determinants of health (e.g., stigma, access to integrated care and telehealth, personal and collective strengths); and (c) social justice approaches to understand and dismantle oppression. 

Perrin is a clinical health and rehabilitation psychologist and holds a joint appointment with the UVA School of Data Science. He also serves as Co-Director of the Polytrauma Rehabilitation Center Traumatic Brain Injury Model Systems Program at the Central Virginia Veterans Affairs Health Care System and is editor-in-chief of Rehabilitation Psychology. He is passionate about mentoring students in psychology, data science, and allied fields to become agents of social change in their personal and professional lives with an emphasis on disability and health. He teaches courses in multivariate statistics, behavioral research methodology, data science methodology, health disparities, health psychology, multicultural psychology, and community intervention. If you are considering applying to work with Perrin as a PhD student, undergraduate student, postdoctoral fellow, or post-bac, please read more about the process on the Social Justice in Disability and Health Lab applicant page.

Perrin spent ten years as a student at the University of Florida, earning a PhD in Counseling Psychology, an MS in Psychology, a BS in Psychology, and a BA in English Literature. He completed a trauma-focused clinical internship at the Maryland Veterans Affairs Health Care System and the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Perrin completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Virginia Commonwealth University in Clinical Supervision and spent eleven years there as a faculty member before coming to UVA.