Kirsten Gilbert

Kirsten Gilbert

Assistant Professor of Psychiatry

Education & Training


  • Postdoctoral Research Fellowship: NIMH T32: Washington University, St. Louis, MO, 2017
  • Postdoctoral Fellowship: Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, 2015
  • PhD: Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, 2014, 2014
  • BA: Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, 2005, 2005

Major Awards


  • NIMH K23 Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Career Development Award, 2017
  • Child Intervention, Prevention and Services (CHIPS) Institute Training Consortium, 2017
  • NIMH Career Development Institute for Bipolar Disorder, 2015
  • Outstanding Clinician Award, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, 2014

Research Interests


Dr. Gilbert’s research examines how ‘too much self-control,’ in the form of heightened performance monitoring and ‘overcontrol’ develop in young children. She is interested in elucidating when overcontrol may be adaptive versus when it may contribute to psychopathology (e.g., social anxiety, obsessive-compulsive presentations, anorexia, social functioning deficits) in young children and adolescents. Dr. Gilbert also studies the development of reward processing/positive emotional functioning and the role of parenting and the parent-child relationship in overcontrolled phenotypes in youth. Dr. Gilbert utilizes behavioral, EEG/ERP techniques, and parent-child observational data in her research.

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Key Publications


  • Funded Research Projects


    NIMH K23: Heightened Performance Monitoring and Overcontrol: Neural Markers and Caregiving Processes in Developmental Risk Trajectories
    Washington University Institute of Clinical and Translational Science (ICTS) Clinical and Translational Research Funding Program:
    Targeting the Transdiagnostic Mechanism of Performance Monitoring and Overcontrol in Adolescence: Adaption and Feasibility