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I am originally from Germany, but have lived in the U.S. since 1985. After almost 15 years in Chicago, I was ready for a new adventure. I came to join the faculty in the psychology department at UAF in the fall of 1999. I received my B.A. in psychology from DePaul University in 1989 and my Ph.D. in community, organizational, and social psychology from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1999.

 I enjoy teaching at the undergraduate and graduate level. In the undergraduate program I teach community psychology, research methods, industrial/organizational psychology, and psychology of women. My graduate courses include program evaluation and community consultation and the community psychology across cultures course. I am particularly excited about meeting students from all walks of life and from different cultural backgrounds in my classes and working with me on research projects - there is so much to learn from people who have had different life experiences, or have a different perspective on many of the issues affecting us.

My research has focused on community leadership, community and organizational development and change, organizational culture, and health promotion. Currently, I am a researcher at the Center for Alaska Health Â鶹¹ÙÍø (CANHR) (). My research takes place in a Yup’ik community southwest of Bethel. I have been working with members of this community for several years to develop a model for health promotion that can be used in other communities in the Yukon-Kuskokwim region and in other regions of Alaska. The project is called PICIRYARATGGUN CALRITLLERKAQ (Healthy Living Through A Healthy Lifestyle). It focuses on increasing the consumption of traditional Native foods, increasing physical activity, and decreasing stress. The project is now in its 4th year and has just been funded by the National Heart Blood and Lung Institute until 2009.

FlexCog Lab research

The FlexCog Lab (Flexible Cognition) Lab studies healthy aging and age-related changes in thought and behavior.  We are especially interested in local residents and the opportunities and challenges faced by those in Interior Alaska. 

To learn more about the FlexCog lab and our studies, please visit our Google site:

FlexCog Lab promo video. Created by Dr. Peterson

 

Nature Lab Â鶹¹ÙÍø

The Nature Lab was established to further study the relationship between people and their environment. We focus on issues of special interest to interior Alaska such as how the dynamic light cycle affects the health and well-being of local residents.

To learn more about Nature lab and our studies, please visit our Google site below:

 

We Are CLA Fall 2016: Professor Jen Peterson & psych undergrad student, Gabe Cartagena.

 

 

Dr. Jen Peterson, Dr. Sheppard and Dr. Lopez at URSA Â鶹¹ÙÍø Day.

 

 

I was born in Russia, but moved to the U.S. in 1977. I received my B.A. in psychology from UC Berkeley in 1993, and my Ph.D. in social psychology (with minors in health psychology and psychometrics) from UCLA in 2000. I completed a post-doctoral fellowship in an interdisciplinary research training program on psychosocial and mental health services for people living with HIV. I was awarded a UCLA AIDS Institute Seed Grant for a project examining the effects of an expressive writing intervention on immune function and psychological adjustment for people living with HIV (Rivkin, Gustafson, Weingarten and Chin, 2006). I worked at UCLA as project director for the Eban program, a multi-site NIMH funded trial testing a culturally congruent HIV/STD risk reduction intervention for HIV-discordant African-American couples. I moved to Alaska in 2006 and worked as a visiting faculty member in the Psychology Department at UAA, before joining the faculty here at UAF in 2007.

The central theme of my research is adaptation in a social and cultural context, involving examination of the factors that promote physical and psychological health for people coping with stressful events. My work explores the effects of health interventions that incorporate cultural and community strengths, such as culturally congruent HIV risk reduction, health promotion, and coping interventions. I am also interested in how actively confronting a stressful event and expressing the accompanying emotions affect health and well-being, and in the role that the social and cultural context play in this process.

I am a researcher at the Center for Alaska Native Health Â鶹¹ÙÍø (CANHR), and investigator  on the "Yup'ik Experiences of Stress and Coping" project.  The goal of this project is to understand stress and coping in Yu'pik communities in order to develop a community-informed and culturally-grounded stress-reduction intervention. 

In addition to being an active researcher, I enjoy teaching. I have taught undergraduate courses in Social Psychology, Health Psychology, Â鶹¹ÙÍø Methods, General Psychology, and Personality, and Ph.D. courses in Community Psychology, Program Evaluation, and Community Practicum. Music and nature are also important in my life. In my spare time, I enjoy singing, songwriting, canoeing, hiking, skiing, and paragliding with my husband, Adam.

Inna and husband Adam riding the Gulkana river current.

 

Collaborating with Yup’ik communities.

 

Dr. Rivkin & her research team waiting to board their bush plane after disseminating project findings in one of her partnering Yup’ik communities.

Dr. Rivkin enjoying a spring bike ride in the woods!

 

Publications:

• Rivkin, I.D., Johnson, S.*, Lopez, E., Trimble, J., Quaintance, T.*, & Orr, E. (2017). Yup’ik understanding of stress within the context of rapid cultural change. Journal of Community Psychology, 45(1), 33-52
• Hewell, V.M.*, Vasquez, A.R.*, & Rivkin, I.D. (2017). Systemic and individual factors in the buprenorphine treatment-seeking process: A qualitative study. Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy, 12(1):3. doi: 10.1186/s13011-016-0085-y
  
• Allen, J., Rivkin, I.D., & Lopez, E.D.S. (2014).  Health and well-being. In F. Leong, L. Comas-Diaz, G. Nagayama Hall, V. McLloyd, & J. Trimble (Eds.) APA Handbook of Multicultural Psychology: Vol. 1. Theory and Â鶹¹ÙÍø (pp. 299-311). Washington, DC: APA Press.
• Rivkin, I.D., Trimble, J., Lopez, E., Johnson, S.*, Orr, E., & Allen, J. (2013).  Disseminating research in rural Yup’ik communities: Challenges and ethical considerations in moving from discovery to intervention development. International Journal of Circumpolar Health, 72 (suppl. 1), 409-416. doi: 10.3402/ijch.v72i0.20958

• Gifford, V., Niles, B., Rivkin, I.D., Koverola, C., & Polaha, J. (2012).  Continuing education training focused on the development of behavioral telehealth competencies in behavioral healthcare providers. Rural and Remote Health, 12: 2108 (Online). Available: 

• Trimble, J., Rivkin, I.D., Johnson, S., Lopez, D. S., Orr, E., Allen, J., Fok, C., & Henry, D. B. (2012). ‘Taringenqegcallrat cayarat umyuat-llu': Indigenous understandings in community based participatory research. Symposium published online by invitation in SCRA special issue of the Global Journal of Community Psychology Practice, 2(3).   

• Rivkin, I.D., Johnson, S., Lopez, E., Orr, E., & Trimble, J. (2012). Understanding Yup’ik conceptions of stress within the context of rapid cultural change.  Narrated presentation published online by invitation in SCRA special issue of the Global Journal of Community Psychology Practice, 2(3).  

• Lopez, E., Orr, E., Rivkin, I.D., & Johnson, S. (2012). Icugg’, caarkalissiiyaakuvet? [You know, when you have too much to do?] Challenges in translating meaning. Narrated presentation published online by invitation in SCRA special issue of the Global Journal of Community Psychology Practice, 2(3). 

• Ford, T., Avey, J., DeRuyter, J., Whipple, J. L., & Rivkin, I.D. (2012). Providers’ voices on telebehavioral health: Survey of an outpatient counseling agency in Alaska. Psychological Services, 9(3), 316-317.

• Rivkin, I.D., Lopez, E.D.S., Quaintance, T.M., Trimble, J.,, Hopkins, S., Fleming, C., Orr, E., & Mohatt, G.V. (2011). Value of community partnership for understanding stress and coping in rural Yup'ik communities: The CANHR study, Journal of Health Disparities Â鶹¹ÙÍø and Practice,4(3), 1-17.

• Gifford, V., Koverola, C., & Rivkin, I.D. (2010). Factors contributing to the long-term retention of behavioral health providers in rural Alaska. Rural Mental Health, 34(1),12-22.

• Rivkin, I.D., Wakelee, M, & Niles, B. (2009) Adjustment of students migrating from rural communities to attend university.  Synopsis paper published in proceedings of conferece on "Lessons from Continuity an Change in the Fourth International Polar Year.", Fairbanks, AK.

• Shepler, D., Lupfer-Johnson, G., & Rivkin, I.D., (2008).  The effects of yoga on self-objectification.  Psi Chi Journal of Undergraduate Â鶹¹ÙÍø, 13 (4), 168-172.

• Williams, J. K., Wyatt, G. E., Rivkin, I.D., Ramamurthi, H. C., Li, X., & Liu, H. (2008). Risk reduction for HIV-positive African American and Latino men with histories of childhood sexual abuse.  Archives if Sexual Behavior, 37(5), 763-772.

• NIMH Multisite HIV/STD Prevention Trial for African American Couples Group (2008a).  Formative study to develop the EBAN treatment and comparison interventions for couples.  Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes, 49 (Supp1), S42-S51.

• NIMH Multisite HIV/STD Prevention trial for African American Couples Group (2008b).  Supervision of facilitators in a multisite study:  Goals, process and outcomes.  Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Symptoms, 49 (Supp1), S59-S67.

• Rivkin, I.D., Gustafson, J., & Weingarten, I., & Chin, D. (2006). The effects of expressive writing on adjustment to HIV. AIDS and Behavior, 10(1), 13-26.

• Myers, H., Wyatt, G. E., Loeb, T. B., Carmona, J. V., Warda, U., Longshore, D., Rivkin, I.D., Chin, D., & Liu, H. (2006). Severity of child sexual abuse, post-traumatic stress and risky sexual behaviors among HIVpositive women. AIDS and Behavior, 10(2), 191-199.

• Liu, H., Longshore, D., Williams, J. K., Rivkin, I.D., Loeb, T., Warda, U. S., Carmona, J. V., Myers, H., & Wyatt, G. (2006). Substance abuse and medication adherence among HIV-positive women with histories of childsexual abuse. AIDS and Behavior, 10(3), 279-286.

• Wyatt, G. E., Longshore, D., Chin, D., Carmona, J. V., Loeb, T. B., Myers, H. F., Warda, U., Liu, H., & Rivkin, I.D. (2004). The efficacy of an integrated risk reduction intervention for HIV-positive women with child sexual abuse histories. AIDS and Behavior, 8(4), 453-462.

• Wyatt, G. E., Loeb, T. B., Rivkin, I.D., Carmona, J. V., Chin, D., Williams, J., Myers, H., Longshore, D., & Sykora, C.; UCLA Women’s Health Project (2003). What does child sexual abuse have to do with    HIV prevention? Center for AIDS Prevention Studies, UCSF, Child Sexual Abuse Fact Sheet #52E, September 2003.

• Loeb, T. B., Williams, J. K., Carmona, J. V., Rivkin, I.D., Wyatt, G. E., Chin, D., & Asuan-O’Brian, A. (2002). Child sexual abuse associations with the sexual functioning of adolescents and adults. In J.R. Heiman & C.M. Davis (Eds.), Annual Review of Sex Â鶹¹ÙÍø, Volume XIII (pp. 307-345). Allentown, PA: Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality.

• Rivkin, I.D. & Taylor, S. E. (1999). The effects of mental simulation on coping with controllable stressful events. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25(12), 1451-1462.

• Grolnick, W. S., Kurowski, C. O., McMenamy, J. M., Rivkin, I.D., & Bridges, L. J. (1998). Mothers’ strategies for regulating their toddlers’ distress. Infant Behavior and Development, 21(3), 437-450.

• Taylor, S. E., Pham, L. B., Rivkin, I.D., & Armor, D. A. (1998). Harnessing the imagination: Mental simulation, self-regulation, and coping. American Psychologist, 53(4), 429-439.

• Han, E. E., & Rivkin, I.D. (1998). Relations between study habits, sleep, stress, and academic performance. Journal of Psychology and the Behavioral Sciences, 12, 23-32.

• Coleman, E. B., Brown, A. L., & Rivkin, I.D. (1997). The effects of instructional explanations on inferences from scientific text. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 6(4), 347-365.