Funding Opportunities

Walter Katkovsky Research Grants

The Walter Katkovsky Research Grants support research on the general topic of psychotherapy.

Deadline: April 17, 2025
Amount: 2 grants of $22,500
Sponsors: APF

The Walter Katkovsky Research Grants support research on the general topic of psychotherapy. Research proposals should be directed to questions and hypotheses designed to improve our understanding based on theory or methods of how psychotherapy promotes behavioral, emotional, or cognitive changes. While the ultimate goal of the research should be to inform the psychotherapy process, its specific focus may be limited to an underlying assumption, hypothesis, or questions; and the actual design may be “clinical” or “experimental” in terms of subjects and procedures. That is, the research design may be a simulation of some aspect of the psychotherapy process (e.g., learning or exposure trials) and subjects may or may not be classified as “patients”.

The proposal must describe in detail the experimental methodology (i.e., hypotheses, subject selection, and measures of independent and dependent variables, including a description of the psychotherapy that must deal with life problems and emotional/behavioral reactions) and result in the collection of new data.

Eligibility

APF encourages applicants from diverse backgrounds with respect to age, race, color, religion, creed, nationality, ability, sexual orientation, gender, and geography.

Applicants must:

  • be psychologists up to 12 years of postdoctoral 
  • be affiliated with a nonprofit charitable, educational, or scientific institution, or governmental entity operating exclusively for charitable and educational purposes
  • have demonstrated competence and capacity to execute the proposed work

Application Instructions

Application Materials:

  • project proposal
  • project timeline 
  • full budget and justification 
  • CV 

Evaluation Criteria
Applications will be evaluated on:

  • quality, viability, and potential impact of the proposed project
  • originality, innovation, and contribution to the field
  • applicant’s demonstrated competence and capability to execute the proposed work
  • criticality of funding for execution of work (particularly if part of a larger funded effort)

Please be advised that APF does not provide feedback to applicants on their proposals.

Please review our Program FAQs for important details on the application process.

Recent Recipient

Dr. Sarah Hope Lincoln

Case Western Reserve University

“Psychotherapy Social Skills Interventions for Adolescents”

Past Recipients

2024

Dr. Alice E. Coyne, American University
“Leveraging New Technologies to Optimize Psychotherapy Outcomes for Underserved Populations”

Dr. Kyle S. Minor, Indiana University
“SPARK-Healthy Sleep: A Digital Health Intervention to Promote Behavioral, Emotional, and Cognitive Change in Youth at Risk for Psychosis”

2023

Dr. Steven Bistricky, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs
“Resilience-Based Brief Psychotherapy for Underserved Injury Survivors: Factors Supporting Healthy Adaptation”

Dr. Sarah Hope Lincoln, Case Western Reserve University, “Psychotherapy Social Skills Interventions for Adolescents”

2022

Caroline Shanholtz, PhD, University of California, Los Angeles
“Pilot Trial of an Integrated Care Treatment for Children (Aged 6-11) with PTSD”

Hadar Fisher, PhD, University of Haifa
“Emotional Rigidity as a Treatment-Specific Mechanism of Change for Major Depressive Disorder”

Jillian R. Scheer, PhD, Syracuse University
“Expressive writing therapy to reduce PTSD symptoms and hazardous drinking among trauma-exposed sexual minority women: A randomized controlled trial”

Kristel Thomassin, PhD, University of Guelph
“Child Psychotherapy Promotes Improvements in Functioning via Enhanced Physiological Regulation”

Michelle Rozenman, PhD, University of Denver
“Optimizing Inhibitory Learning in Exposure-Based Treatment for Anxious Youth”

Nili Solomonov, PhD, Weill Cornell Medicine
“Engage & Connect”: A Scalable Telehealth Psychotherapy Targeting Social Reward Processing and Behavioral Activation to Reduce Symptoms of Postpartum Depression”

2021

Mary Dozier, PhD, Mississippi State University 

Shannon Diane Donofry, PhD, University of Pittsburgh 

Andres Eduardo Perez-Rojas, PhD, New Mexico State University

2020

Valentina Ivezaj, PhD, Yale University

Dana Tzur Bitan, PhD, Ariel University

2018

Hannah C. Levy, PhD, Institute of Living/Hartford Hospital

Lorenzo Lorenzo-Luaces, Indiana University at Bloomington

Joseph F. McGuire, PhD, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Jennifer L. Wilson, PhD, and Robert Beck, PhD, South Texas Veterans Health Care System Polytrauma Rehabilitation Center

2017

Nicole E. Caporino, PhD, American University

Robert J. DeRubeis, PhD, University of Pennsylvania

David Mintz, MD, The Austen Riggs Center

Ivar Snorrason, PhD, Columbia University Medical Center

Michael Wheaton, PhD, Barnard College