Molly Lopez, Ph.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist, a research associate professor at Steve Hicks School of Social Work, and the director of the Texas Institute for Excellence in Mental Health. Her research interests include mental health services, child and adolescent service systems, the implementation of evidence-based practices, and cognitive behavioral therapies.

Previously, Lopez served in several leadership roles within the Texas public mental health agency, the Texas Department of State Health Services. In these roles, she provided policy and programmatic oversight of children’s mental health services and played a key role in a system redesign aimed at ensuring that evidence-based treatments were widely available and supported by state infrastructure.