Magidson, Jessica

Bio

Dr. Jessica Magidson is an Associate Professor in the Clinical area in the Department of Psychology, the Director of CESAR--the Center for Substance Use, Addiction & Health Research in the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences (BSOS), an MPower Professor, through the University of Maryland Strategic Partnership: MPowering the State, and PI of IN-PLACE, an Interdisciplinary Network for Place-Based Learning, Action, & Community-Engaged EnvironMental Health, a UMD Grand Challenge 2.0 Institutional Award.

Credentials. She received her PhD in Clinical Psychology from University of Maryland College Park in 2013 and completed her predoctoral clinical internship in Behavioral Medicine and postdoctoral fellowship in Global Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, where she was also an Assistant Professor and Staff Psychologist prior to returning to UMD in 2018. She was Certified in Nature-Informed Therapy in 2025 from the Center for Nature Informed Therapy.

Research Overview. Dr. Magidson's research over the past decade has focused on how to address the global mental health and substance use treatment gaps. Overall, her program of research has focused on how to expand the reach of evidence-based behavioral interventions by training peers and community health workers. She is currently the PI of six NIH-funded trials to evaluate peer and community health worker-delivered behavioral interventions to improve substance use and other health outcomes locally and globally in sub-Saharan Africa. Her research program aims to foster bidirectional learning between ongoing research in sub-Saharan Africa and local collaborations in Maryland to improve the treatment of addiction and its impact on physical health comorbidities in underserved clinical settings globally. 

Current Research. 

How Nature Can Address the Mental Health Treatment Gap. Dr. Magidson received a 2026 James McKeen Cattell Sabbatical Award -- How Nature Can Help Address the Global Mental Health Treatment Gap. Globally, over 80% of people in need of mental health interventions do not receive care. Over the past decade, her team has shown that we can train people with lived experience and community health workers to expand access to care. Yet, no matter how many people we train, we will never have enough providers. Further, providers are facing high levels of burnout. What if one of the most scalable solutions is actually right outside of our doors?

Humans spend 93% of our lives indoors, despite decades of research demonstrating mental and physical health benefits of nature exposure. Through processes proposed in attention restoration theory, nature exposure can shift cognition, reduce burnout, and improve well-being. The overall goal of her sabbatical award is to bridge evidence-based mental health interventions, such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), with the benefits of nature exposure to improve patient and provider well-being. Through this sabbatical award, she aims to advance the field of nature and mental health and shift norms of practice for CBT providers to leverage the natural world—for themselves, their patients, and the environment.

IN-PLACE: Interdisciplinary Network for Place-based Learning, Action, & Community-Engaged EnvironMental Health (PI: Magidson) is a UMD Grand Challenge Initiative 2.0 Institutional Award to advance research, education, campus and community programming focused on nature and mental health. 

Addressing the growing mental health burden globally is an urgent grand challenge of our time. Mental health remains one of the leading contributors to disability and loss of productivity. An estimated 80% of individuals globally who are experiencing mental health concerns do not receive care. Though service gaps are even higher in low-income countries, disparities also exist across the U.S., including on our campus and within our local communities. Research studies have demonstrated how experiences in nature can improve mental health and well-being. Yet, nature exposure has historically been inadequately integrated with evidence-based mental health care. Further, disparities exist in who can easily and safely access nature. Place-based disparities mirror the disparities in mental health access and treatment. Research has also shown that time spent in nature can increase pro-environmental behaviors. As global environmental sustainability crises contribute to mental health challenges, particularly among people in climate-impacted communities, efforts to invest in nature-based experiences will impact multiple societal grand challenges, including mental health, health equity, and environmental health.

IN-PLACE brings together diverse interdisciplinary perspectives and community partnerships to address three grand challenges—global mental health, health equity, and environmental health— that are inextricably linked. IN-PLACE focuses on nature-based experiences, environments, and interventions as the mechanisms for targeting these synergistic grand challenges. The core goals of IN-PLACE are to: generate high-impact interdisciplinary research to support mental health; create new innovative, collaborative campus-based programming to support student, faculty, and staff well-being; lead impactful, community-engaged research and programming to promote equity in access to nature-based mental health benefits in marginalized communities; and promote novel nature-based experiential learning opportunities to equip the next generation of scholars and practitioners to address global mental and environmental health, centered on community-engaged principles. IN-PLACE aims to generate new research collaborations, reach students, faculty and staff through campus-based programming, and provide mental health training in underserved communities. The team will develop new community partnerships, including sustained collaboration with tribal, rural, and environmental justice partners. Community-engaged programming will impact Maryland residents' nature access, and K–12 students and educators through place-based initiatives. IN-PLACE will also create new experiential learning offerings and develop new courses with service-learning components. IN-PLACE is committed to improving the lives of millions of people, locally and globally, through increased access to both nature and mental health support.

Clinical Interests. Dr. Magidson is a licensed clinical psychologist with expertise in behavioral activation and mindfulness-based interventions and nature-informed cognitive behavioral therapy. She has a deep passion for the outdoors and is certified as a nature-informed therapist. She is committed to training the next generation of mental health providers and bridging nature-informed therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy. 

Active NIH-Funded Research Projects in the US

Dr. Magidson is leading several trials funded by the NIH HEAL Initiative in partnership with University of Maryland School of Medicine evaluating peer-delivered interventions to improve retention in treatment for opioid use disorder, including (1) among low-income, minority individuals in Baltimore (R33DA057747; Magidson) and (2) in rural areas of Maryland via a telemedicine-enabled mobile treatment unit (R01DA057443; Magidson, Kattakuzhy).

With UMB, she is also co-leading a new initiative "ARTEMIS: Advancing Addiction Research and Treatment through Engagement with Rural Marylanders Impacted by PolySubstance Use" (R24DA061178; Magidson, Kattakuzhy) to create a national consultation model for engaging patients and community members in the research process in rural Maryland to support improvements in polysubstance use care delivery. Also with UMB she is co-leading with UMB a five-year trial (R01DA061324; Magidson, Rosenthal) to evaluate a peer-delivered intervention to support adherence to long-acting injectable forms of medication for HIV treatment and prevention in two community sites in DC and Baltimore. She is also co-leading a newly funded trial with Henry Ford Health to evaluate a peer-delivered intervention to support both substance use and depression outcomes in a certified community behavioral health clinic in Detroit (R01MH137237; Magidson, Felton). 

Active NIH-Funded Research Projects in South Africa

In South Africa, she is leading a trial in partnership with University of Cape Town "Project Khanya" (R01DA056102; Magidson) to evaluate a stepped-care, peer-delivered intervention to improve HIV medication adherence and substance use in primary care in Cape Town, South Africa. She is also leading an NIH-funded project with the South African Medical Research Council and Curtin University in Australia on how to support community health workers to deliver home-based mental health and HIV services (R21TW012347; Magidson, Myers, Carney).  

Nature-Based Delivery of Evidence-Based Mental Health Care Globally Initiative

Across all trials, Dr. Magidson is gathering patient and provider perspectives on how to incorporate nature-based delivery of behavioral activation and mindfulness-based approaches to address mental health and substance use. This work is conducted throughout active trials throughout Maryland with peer recovery specialists working in opioid use disorder treatment, in DC focused on individuals at risk or living with HIV, as well as in the context of peer- and community health worker models in South Africa. Goals are to capture patient and provider perspectives to (1) adapt existing behavioral activation and mindfulness interventions to promote nature exposure; (2) evaluate nature-based delivery as an implementation strategy for task shared mental health and substance use care globally; while also (3) promoting provider well-being and reduced burnout in task sharing models.