Karen Bax, Ph.D., C. Psych. is a Clinical Psychologist and Director of Western’s Mary J. Wright Centre for Research and Education at Merrymount. She is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Education, Western University.

Registered as a Clinical Psychologist, Dr. Bax engages in training future scholars and practitioners through in-class teaching and as the practicum supervisor for students in the Ph.D. in School and Applied Child Psychology program. Dr. Bax is also the Director of Western’s Mary J. Wright Research and Education Centre at Merrymount, a unique university-community collaboration that emphasizes early child development research in real-world settings and knowledge sharing across systems. 

Dr. Bax’s work as a psychologist has led her to a research focus in prevention and early intervention in children’s mental health modeled with the recognition of the need to disseminate empirically supported or informed treatment to the community in an efficacious way.  Her research involves adapting a school-based empirically supported social-emotional and mindful awareness program for parents and children for use in a community setting. The adaptation of the curriculum, the program design, and the evaluation of the intervention is being completed in collaboration with community professionals who will be delivering the intervention.  A related research focus for Dr. Bax is the development and sustainability of university-community partnerships for service-learning, research and service.