James V. Cordova, PhD, is a professor of psychology and the director of the Center for Couples and Family Research and the Marriage Checkup Program at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA.

Dr. Cordova is a leading figure in the field of couples research and therapy. He has been conducting research and publishing in the area of couple therapy, intimacy, and the promotion of marital health and actively training couples therapists for more than 15 years.

He is the developer of the Marriage Checkup, a motivational interviewing approach to the promotion of marital health and has completed work as the principal investigator of a $1 million National Institutes of Health grant investigating the efficacy of his Marriage Checkup as the marital health equivalent of the annual physical health checkup.

Dr. Cordova is currently co-investigator with Dr. Kristi Coop Gordon on a $2.3 million grant from the US Administration of Children and Families to disseminate the Marriage Checkup in primary care settings serving low-income couples.

His work has been covered extensively in the popular media, including the New York Times Science section, the Washington Post, CNN, the Rachael Ray Show, and Good Morning America.

He received his doctorate from the University of Washington in Seattle, USA, where he studied with leading couples researchers Neil Jacobson and John Gottman. He conducted the first empirical study of integrative couple therapy with Neil Jacobson and Andrew Christensen in 1998.

He is the author of a self-help book based on his research, The Marriage Checkup: A Scientific Program for Sustaining and Strengthening Marital Health.

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