Biography

Nikki Cockern, PhD, a graduate of Duke and Howard Universities, is a Clinical Pediatric Psychologist and Assistant Professor at Wayne State University, Department of Pediatrics, with extensive experience implementing health behavior change interventions for adolescents and young adults.

She is the psychologist and one of the lifelines at Horizons Project (an adolescent/young adult HIV multidisciplinary medical and ancillary care clinic in Detroit, MI) and has been working with minority youth with HIV since 2004. She has provided clinical supervision for several research projects including Healthy Choices targeting youth living with HIV, We Test, and the Young Men’s Health Project targeting risk behaviors and PrEP initiation in young men who have sex with men. She has been a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers (MINT) since 2007 and uses Motivational Interviewing (MI) in clinical practice with youth in the areas of adherence, substance use, mental illness, partner violence, coping, risk reduction and mindfulness.

In addition to supervising intervention staff on several clinical research trials, she actively trains staff in various community and state agencies, as well as instructs and supervises residents and other medical professionals and community health workers in MI. Lastly, Dr. Cockern, is active in several subcommittees within the MINT organization addressing inclusion and diversity among the membership and in trainings, as well as the mentoring and coaching of new members.

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