Martha Falkenstein

Martha J. Falkenstein, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and the Director of Research for the Office of Clinical Assessment and Research (OCAR) at the OCD Institute at McLean Hospital. Her research focuses on investigating mediators and moderators of treatment response, and developing novel treatments for obsessive compulsive related disorders (OCRD). She has conducted research about accommodation of symptoms of trichotillomania, and is currently studying accommodation in adults with treatment-refractory OCD. Dr. Falkenstein has received funding from NIMH, the International OCD Foundation, and Harvard Medical School (Kaplen Fellowship and Livingston Award) to support this work.

Currently, Dr. Falkenstein is principal investigator on a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Career Development (K23) Award testing a novel method of augmenting exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy with a smartphone-based intervention targeting cognitive biases, utilizing machine learning to develop personalized predictions of which individuals may best respond.