David Kolko PhD

Dr. Kolko is a Professor of Psychiatry, Psychology, Pediatrics, and Clinical and Translational Science. He directs the Special Services Unit at Western Psychiatric Hospital, a treatment research program for children/youth referred by the Juvenile Justice or Child Welfare systems. Dr. Kolko’s grant funding has been directed towards the study and treatment of disruptive disorders, childhood firesetting, juvenile sexual offending, and child physical abuse/family conflict, as well as the dissemination and implementation of integrated collaborative behavioral health care models in pediatric practice. He has been an investigator on effectiveness or implementation trials designed to disseminate cognitive-behavioral and family-system treatments for youth involved as victims or offenders of violent/aggressive behavior to practitioners in various service settings including primary care, juvenile justice, child welfare, and mental health.  He is in his 32nd year as a core faculty member on the Pre-Doctoral Clinical Psychology Internship Committee, is a member of the Psychology Discipline Committee at WPH, and routinely supervises/mentors undergraduate/honor’s students, graduate students, residents, post-doctoral fellows, and local faculty.  Given his membership on the pediatric subcommittee of the University of Pittsburgh IRB, Dr. Kolko has been able to train and mentor students in both the clinical and research underpinnings of treatment outcome and implementation research studies.