About
Girija Kaimal is the assistant dean for the Division of Human Development and Health Administration and an associate professor in the PhD program in Creative Arts Therapies at Drexel University. In her Health, Arts, Learning and Evaluation (HALE) research lab, she examines the physiological and psychological health outcomes of visual and narrative self-expression. She has published over 60 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters, has led research and evaluation studies and has had continuous grant funding since 2008. Her research has been featured by NPR, CNN, The New York Times as well as a range of media outlets worldwide. She was listed among 100 women scientists leading research and also featured as one of the ten people whose research changed the world. Most recently, she was awarded the first qualitative research grant for studying aging and demographic differences in Gulf War Illness by the Department of Defense. She is also PI for two studies funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, examining outcomes of art therapy for military service members with traumatic brain injury and posttraumatic stress, and arts-based approaches to mitigate chronic stress among patients and caregivers in pediatric hematology/oncology units. Additional current studies include examining the therapeutic underpinnings of indigenous and traditional artforms and serving as a research advisor to Save the Children International on projects that examine the role of the arts in education and human development. Kaimal has also conducted multi-year evaluation studies on leadership development funded by Lehigh University (through grants from the U.S. Department of Education). As part of these mixed methods studies, she examined how participation in the arts could ignite learning transfer to leadership practices. Other prior research experiences in human development include conducting secondary analyses of qualitative data from a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) longitudinal study of depression in families; and a multi-disciplinary study on the outcomes of genetic testing for hearing loss funded by the National Institute of Deafness and other Communication Disorders (NIDCD). Living out her research interests, she has been a lifelong visual artist and her art explores the intersection of identity and representation of emotion. Her service commitments at present include being the president-elect of the American Art Therapy Association (a member organization of over 4,000 members) and faculty senate representative from CNHP.