Dr. Alex (“Allie”) Keller, Ph.D.

Dr. Alex (“Allie”) Keller, Ph.D. is a licensed Clinical Psychologist and Neuropsychologist at Boston Child Study Center. She conducts comprehensive neuropsychological assessments with children, adolescents and young adults referred for a variety of cognitive and socioemotional concerns. She also provides cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and other evidence-based interventions for children, adolescents, young adults, and their families.

Dr. Keller received her B.S. in Biology from Cornell University before earning her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Boston University. As a graduate student, she received robust training in the cognitive-behavioral treatment of anxiety disorders for children, adolescents and young adults through The Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders (CARD). She also trained as a pre-doctoral extern at Hasbro Hospital’s Pediatric Neuropsychology Program, where she provided neuropsychological assessment to youth with developmental disorders and primary medical conditions. She trained at Beth Israel’s Center for Early Detection, Assessment and Response to Risk (CEDAR), where she gained experience in the evidence-based assessment and treatment of youth at risk for schizophrenia and related conditions. She helped found a behavioral medicine clinic at Boston University, where she treated children with chronic pain and gastrointestinal conditions. She completed her pre-doctoral internship at Cambridge Health Alliance/Harvard Medical School, where she worked on the hospital’s integrated care teams to provide psychological treatment to youth within pediatric primary care and within the Cambridge Public School system.

Dr. Keller’s research interests center on how information about a child’s cognitive functioning can better inform the ways in which they are treated for psychological conditions. She is passionate about tailoring psychosocial treatments to best fit individual children and their unique learning profiles. She also seeks to use neuropsychological assessment to better understand the mechanisms underlying mental illness in a child’s development. Dr. Keller’s dissertation research focused on the neuropsychological correlates of anxiety disorders in children, as well as on the effect of acute anxiety symptoms on neuropsychological test performance. She has also published numerous peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters on the evidence-based treatment of pediatric anxiety disorders, tic disorders and chronic pain.