Dr. Elizabeth A. Klonoff
Vice President for Research &
Dean of the College of Graduate Studies
University of Central Florida

Dr. Elizabeth A. Klonoff is the Vice President for Research and Dean of the College of Graduate Studies at UCF. She came to UCF from San Diego State University and the University of California, San Diego. She served as SDSU Co-Director of the Joint Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology, and she held faculty appointments at both universities. She also served as the SDSU contact person for the UCSD Clinical & Translational Science Awards grant.

Dr. Klonoff has a long history of experience and interests in cancer research, cancer research training of minorities, and research emphasizing ethnic minorities. A clinical and health psychologist, Dr. Klonoff received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Oregon. She was an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Obstetrics and Gynecology at Duke University School of Medicine and then an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Neurology at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and Director of the Behavior Therapy/Behavioral Medicine Clinic at University Hospitals of Cleveland. In both medical schools, she was actively involved in providing direct service to patients with various forms of cancer; thus, she brings to the current proposal significant experience dealing with the myriad psychosocial issues related to cancer in individuals and their families.

From1988 to 2000, she was on the faculty at California State University, San Bernardino (CSUSB). She served as co-PI (with Landrine serving as PI) on multiple R01-type grants from the Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program and conducted numerous research projects on tobacco control, sexism, racism, and physical and mental health. Her work in tobacco control, supported by over $10 million in grant funds, focuses on the impact of discrimination and acculturation on health, minors’ access to tobacco, and tobacco-related policy interventions. She has published widely on culture and gender diversity in clinical psychology, behavioral medicine, and preventive medicine.

She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association in Division 35 (Psychology of Women), Division 12 (Clinical Psychology), Division 38 (Health Psychology) and Division 45 (Society for the Psychological Study of Ethnic Minority Issues) and is board certified by the American Board of Professional Psychology in both clinical health and clinical psychology. She serves as Associate Editor of Health Psychology, Journal of Behavioral Medicine, and Training and Education in Professional Psychology. In her role on Health Psychology she was responsible for the journal adding a regular recurring series on health disparities to its schedule; the first of these was on cancer disparities.

In her new position at UCF as vice president for Research and dean of the College of Graduate Studies she will be charged with advancing UCF’s reputation and impact as a 21st-century metropolitan research university by growing graduate enrollment, specifically for research-focused degrees, and elevating the scale and quality of its research.