Molly Lopez, Ph.D.

Molly Lopez received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Texas A&M University in 1998 and is a licensed clinical psychologist. Lopez has over 25 years of experience in program evaluation, project management, grant writing, and research dissemination. Her research interests include mental health service systems, implementation of evidence-based mental health interventions, and strategies for enhancing workforce competency. Lopez is the director of the Steve Hicks School of Social Work’s Texas Institute for Excellence in Mental Health and the South Southwest Mental Health Technology Transfer Center.

In a previous position as Children’s Mental Health Lead at the Texas Department of State Health Services (formerly TDMHMR), Lopez provided policy and programmatic oversight of children’s mental health services and played a key role in a system redesign aimed at ensuring that evidence-based treatments were widely available and supported by state infrastructure. During her time at the state mental health agency, she also held roles focused on evaluating public mental health services for children and families, overseeing human subject protections, facilitating academic collaborations, and conducting research focused on improving services and consumer outcomes.

Dr. Lopez’ current work includes co-leadership of the System of Care in Texas, focused on children and youth with significant mental health challenges. She also collaborates on several projects to support comprehensive school mental health systems, including serving as the Lead Institute for Higher Education on the state’s Collaborative Task Force on School Mental Health, and the lead of the internal evaluation of the Texas Child Mental Health Care Consortium. Dr. Lopez serves as an evaluation partner on the state’s Zero Suicide efforts and supports best practice training and quality improvement in suicide prevention. Lopez currently services a Principal Investigator on a NIMH-funded R01 research project to develop a learning healthcare system focused on Coordinated Specialty Care for early psychosis within Texas.