Rebecca
Weiss
Assistant Professor
Phone number
(212) 393-6426
Room number
10.65.13
Education
BA, Psychology & International Studies, Northwestern University MA, Clinical Psychology, Fordham University PhD, Clinical Psychology, Fordham University
Bio

Rebecca Weiss is an Assistant Professor of Forensic Assessment at John Jay College and a licensed clinical psychologist in the state of New York. Before joining the faculty at John Jay, she completed her clinical training at Yale University School of Medicine. She received her PhD and MA in Clinical Psychology from Fordham University.  She received her BA in Psychology and International Studies from Northwestern University.  Her research interests include the effect of group membership (e.g., culture, intellectual disabilities) on validity in psychological assessment, and the impact of trauma on the treatment and development of aggression and substance use disorders. 
 
At the doctoral level she teaches Cognitive Assessment and Personality Assessment.  At the undergraduate level she teaches a range of classes including Psychology & Law, Learning & Memory and Abnormal Psychology. Dr. Weiss is a mentor in the Ronald E. McNair Program and the John Jay Honors Program.  In 2019, she received John Jay's Outstanding Scholarly Mentoring Award.  In 2016, she received McNair's Kwando Kinshasa Excellence in Mentoring Award. She includes students of all levels in her lab, allowing for advanced students to provide additional supervision for less advanced students.  This provides valuable experience for the advanced students, and broadens their research productivity, while proving valuable assistance for the less advanced students. Her students present at 5-8 national or international conferences per year. Her current research projects include evaluating the effect of culture and language on measures of feigning in bilingual and monolingual Spanish-speaking samples.  She is also collaborating with Mid Hudson Psychiatric Center in an examination of competency to stand trial evaluations. Under her mentorship, her students are conducting several studies on a variety of topics including the cultural specificity of PTSD in an African sample, the effect of instruction types on simulation designs, the effect of demographic characteristics on competency to stand trial referrals, and the impact of culturally based gender identity on the development of depression.
 

Scholarly Work

                                                                                                                                              

PEER REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS

*Indicates Student Author

 

Galicia, B. *, Rosinski, A. *, & Weiss, R. (under review).  Ataque de Nervios and related diagnoses in an ethnically diverse student sample.

Lin, L.*, & Weiss, R. (2018). Personality assessment with Asian Americans in legal settings. Journal of Forensic Psychology: Research and Practice. https://doi.org/10.1080/24732850.2018.1490681

Harris, S.*, Weiss, R. (2018).  The impact of defendants’ race in competency to stand trial referrals. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 57, 85-90. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijlp.2018.01.003

Rosinski, A. *, Weiss, R., & Clatch, L.* (2018). Childhood adverse events and adult physical and mental health: A national study. Psi Chi Journal of Psychological Research, 23, 40-50.   https://doi.org/10.24839/2325-7342.JN23.1.40

Weiss, R., & Rosenfeld, B. (2017). Identifying feigning in trauma-exposed African immigrants. Psychological Assessment, 29, 881-.889. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pas0000381.

Ramos-Gonzalez, N. N.*, Weiss, R. A., Schweizer, J.*, & Rosinski, A.* (2016). Fitness to stand trial in immigration proceedings. Canadian Psychology/Psychologie canadienne, 57, 284-290. doi: 10.1037/cap0000070 

Stimmel, M., Cruise, K., Ford, J. & Weiss, R. A. (2014). The relationship between types of trauma exposure, post-traumatic stress disorder symptomatology and aggression in male juvenile offenders. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice and Policy, 6, 184-191. doi: 10.1037/a0032509 

Weiss, R. A., Oberleitner, L., & Easton, C. (2013). Family preservation versus child wellbeing under the Indian Child Welfare Act. Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 41, 125-127.

Muench, F., Weiss, R. A., Kuerbis, A., & Morgenstern, J. (2012). Developing a theory driven text messaging intervention for addictions by assessing adaptive design and tailoring. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 27, 315-321. doi: 10.1037/a0029963

Weiss, R. A., & Rosenfeld, B. (2012). Navigating cross-cultural issues in forensic assessment: Recommendations for practice. Professional Psychology: Research & Practice, 43(3), 234-240. doi: 10.1037/a0025850

Weiss, R. A., Rosenfeld, B. & Farkas, M. (2011). The utility of the Structured Interview of Reported Symptoms in a sample of individuals with intellectual disabilities. Assessment, 18(3), 284-290. doi: 10.1177/1073191111408230

Brice, L., Weiss, R. A., Wei, Y., Satwani, P., Bhatia, M., George, D., Garvin, J., Harrison, L., Cairo, M. & Sands, S. (2011). Health related quality of life (HRQoL): The impact of medical and demographic variables upon pediatric recipients of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Pediatric Blood and Cancer, 57, 1179-1185. doi: 10.1002/pbc.23133

Sands, S., Pasichow, K., Weiss, R. A., Garvin, J., Gardner, S., Dunkel, I. J. & Finlay, J. L. (2011). Quality of life and behavioral follow-up study of Head Start I pediatric brain tumor survivors. Journal of Neuro-Oncology, 10(2) 287-295. doi: 10.1007/s11060-010-0260-3

Weiss, R. A., & Rosenfeld, B. (2010). Cross-Cultural Validity in Malingering Assessment: The DCT in a Rural Indian Sample. The International Journal of Forensic Mental Health, 9(4). 300-307. doi: 10.1080/14999013.2010.526680

BOOK CHAPTERS & ENCYCLOPEDIA ARTICLES

*Indicates Student Author

 

Weiss, R. A. (2018). Evaluating the validity of feigned psychological symptoms across cultural boundaries. In SAGE Research Methods Cases. http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781526437518

 

Weiss, R. A., & Seplowitz, P.  (2017). Student-directed research collaborations between higher education and K-12 classrooms. In R. Obeid, A. Schwartz, C. Shane-Simpson, & P. J. Brooks. (Eds.). How we teach now: The GSTA guide to student-centered teaching. New York, NY: Society for Teaching of Psychology. Retrieved from the Society for the Teaching of Psychology web site: http://teachpsych.org/ebooks/

Weiss, R. A.,  & Massey, C.*  (2017). Gender bias in the DSM. In K. L. Nadal (Ed.). The SAGE Encyclopedia of Psychology and Gender. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications

Weiss, R. A.,  & Massey, C.*  (2017). Psychological measurements, gender bias in. In K. L. Nadal (Ed.). The SAGE Encyclopedia of Psychology and Gender. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications

Weiss, R. A., Rosinski, A.* (2016). Ethical considerations in cross-cultural forensic assessment. In T. Masson (Ed.). Inside Forensic Psychology. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO/Praeger Publishers.

Rosenfeld, B., & Weiss, R. A.  (2008). Hopkins Competency Assessment Tool. In B. Cutler (Ed.). The Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law, (pp 360-361). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, doi: 10.4135/9781412959537.n140

Research Summary

SELECTED NATIONAL & INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS (TOTAL = 56)

*Indicates Student Author

+Indicates Award Winning Presentation (n = 5)

 

Tazi, K.,* Lin, L.*, & Weiss, R. (2018, August). Measuring psychopathy in Asian American defendants: A literature review. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association, San Francisco, CA.

Aveson, O. *, Berenson, J., Simeone, S.*, & Weiss, R. (2018, March). Annual competency to stand trial evaluations: Revisiting a commonly cited estimate. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association, Memphis, TN.

Quezada, Y.,* Rodriguez, J.* & Weiss, R. (2017, August). The effect of acculturation on depression in subgroups of Hispanics. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association, Washington DC.

Soto, A. S.,* Tellez, D.,* Recarey, J.,* & Weiss, R. (2017, August). Substance-related symptoms associated with language but not acculturation in Hispanic sample. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association, Washington DC.

Weiss, R. (2017, August). Theory versus practice: Substance use disorders in competency to stand trial evaluations. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association, Washington DC.

+Harris, S.,* & Weiss, R. (2017, March). Predictors of competency to stand trial referrals in an attorney sample. Paper to be presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychology-Law Society, Seattle, Washington.

Rosinski, A. *, Verkulien, J., & Weiss, R. (2017, March). The factor structure of post-traumatic stress disorder: Cross-cultural validity in a West and Central African sample. Paper to be presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychology-Law Society, Seattle, Washington.

Weiss, R., & Berenson, J. (2017, March). Consistency in jointly versus individually conducted competency to stand trial evaluations. Paper to be presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychology-Law Society, Seattle, Washington.

Harris, S.,* Weiss, R., & Weinberger, E.* (2016, August). Racial disparity in the referrals of African American and Caucasians for competency screening evaluations. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association, Denver, Colorado.

Rosinski, A. *, Weiss, R., & Levitz, A. (2016, June). The impact of participant experience, knowledge, and strategies on successful feigning. Paper presented at the 16th Annual International Association of Forensic Mental Health Services Conference, New York, NY.

Rosinski, A. *, Weiss, R., & Levitz, A. (2016, May). Undergraduate students participants’ ability to successfully feign increases in a student-applicable scenario. Poster presented at the 28th Annual American Psychological Science Convention, Chicago, Illinois.

Weiss, R., Rosinski, A.*, Tellez, D.*, & Galcia, B.* (2016, March). Language and culture in forensic assessment: Appropriate normative data in a Hispanic sample. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychology-Law Society, Atlanta, Georgia.

Galicia, B.*, Weiss, R., Sevilla, K.,* & Schweizer, J.* (2015, August). Translation and adaptation considerations: The use of the Spanish SIRS. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association, Toronto, Canada.

Galicia, B.*, Weiss, R., Schweizer, J.*, Rodriguez, J.*, & Levitz, A.* (2015, May). Cultural variables predict treatment utilization in a representative Hispanic sample. Poster presented at the Annual Convention of the Association for Psychological Science, New York, New York.

+Rosinski, A.*, Weiss, R., & Clatch, L.* (2015, March). Youthful resilience: The effect of childhood maltreatment on adult physical and mental health. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychology-Law Society, San Diego, California.

+Weiss, R. (2014, March). Differentiating feigned and genuine Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in a sample of torture survivors. Invited poster at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychology-Law Society, New Orleans, Louisiana.