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Andres G. Viana, Ph.D., ABPP.


Andres G. Viana, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Board Certified in Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology
Clinical Psychology
Director, Child Temperament, Thoughts, and Emotions Lab
Ph.D., Penn State University

Health 1, Room 373
4849 Calhoun Rd.
Houston, TX 77204-6022
Email: agviana@uh.edu
(832) 842-0234

Dr. Viana will not be reviewing graduate student applications for the 2024-2025 academic year.

Biographical Summary

Dr. Andres G. Viana is Associate Professor of Psychology, a licensed clinical child psychologist, and Director of the Child Temperament, Thoughts, and Emotions Laboratory at the University of Houston. He also serves as Associate Director of the Sleep and Anxiety Center of Houston. Dr. Viana received his M.S. and Ph.D. in Clinical Child Psychology from Penn State University and completed his psychology residency training at the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC), where he remained as a tenure-track member of the Psychiatry department until 2015. Dr. Viana’s program of research is grounded in the developmental psychopathology perspective to psychological functioning and focuses on the study and assessment of risk factors for childhood psychopathologies, with an emphasis on temperamental, emotional, cognitive, and parenting factors that may exacerbate anxiety, as well as the nature of the covariation among these processes. A growing aspect of his research program involves cognitive and emotion-related factors associated with risk behaviors in children with internalizing difficulties. Dr. Viana’s research has been funded by the University of Mississippi Medical Center, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). He is the recipient of several awards, including the Anxiety and Depression Association of America Career Development Award, NIMH’s Child, Intervention, Prevention and Services (CHIPS) Fellowship, and UMMC’s Faculty Research Mentor Award. He is an active member of several professional organizations, including the Society for Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, the Association for Cognitive and Behavioral Therapies and the Anxiety and Depression Association of America. He also serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Anxiety Disorders and the Child and Youth Care Forum.

Research Interests

  • Risk and Maintenance Factors for Childhood Anxiety Disorders
  • Trauma
  • Parenting and Family Processes
  • Experimental Psychopathology

Teaching Interests

  • Clinical Child Psychology
  • Childhood Disorders
  • Developmental Psychology
  • Clinical Supervision

Selected Publications

Viana, A. G., & Stevens, E. N. (in press). Parental threatening behaviors and offspring substance use: The moderating role of anxiety sensitivity. Journal of Child and Adolescent Substance Use.

Ebesutani, C. K., Fierstein, M., Viana, A. G., Trent, L., Sprung, M., & Young, J. (2015). The role of loneliness in the relationship between anxiety and depression in clinical and school-based youth. Psychology in the Schools, 52, 223-234.

Dixon, L. J., Stevens, E. N., & Viana, A. G. (2014). Anxiety sensitivity as a moderator of the relationship between trait anxiety and illicit substance use. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 28, 1284-1289.

Viana, A. G., & Stevens, E. N. (2013) Interpersonal difficulties as an underlying mechanism in the anxiety-depression association. Behaviour Change, 30, 272-281.

Viana, A. G., Gratz, K. L., & Bierman, K. L. (2013). Clustering of temperamental and cognitive risk factors for anxiety in a college sample of late adolescents. Anxiety, Stress, & Coping, 26, 411-430.

Viana, A. G., Ebesutani, C., Young, J., Tull, M. T., & Gratz, K. L. (2012). Childhood exposure to parental threatening behaviors and anxiety symptoms in a community sample of young adults: The mediating role of cognitive biases. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 36, 670–680.

Viana, A. G., Trent, L., Tull, M. T., Heiden, L., Damon, J. D., Hight, T. L., & Young, J. (2012). Non-medical use of prescription drugs among Mississippi youth: Constitutional, psychological, and family factors. Addictive Behaviors, 37, 1382 – 1388.

Viana, A. G., & Gratz, K. L. (2012). Anxiety sensitivity, behavioral inhibition, and cognitive biases in the prediction of anxiety symptoms: Structural equation modeling of direct and indirect pathways. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 68, 1122-1141.