Amit Shapira, PhD

Clinical Provider, Researcher
Behavioral Health
Clinical Behavioral and Outcomes

Clinical Psychologist, Joslin Diabetes Center
Assistant Investigator, Joslin Diabetes Center
Instructor in Psychology, Harvard Medical School

Amit Shapira, PhD is a clinical psychologist in the Pediatric, Adolescent, and Young Adult Section at the Joslin Diabetes Center and an Assistant Investigator in the Section of Clinical, Behavioral, and Outcomes Research. She earned her PhD in Psychology from Yeshiva University, completed her clinical psychology residency at the Northport VA Medical Center, and pursued fellowship training at Joslin.

Dr. Shapira provides outpatient therapy to children, adolescents, and young adults with diabetes and their families. Her clinical work focuses on supporting patients navigate the emotional aspects of living with diabetes, including adjusting to new diagnoses and managing co-occurring mood and anxiety disorders.

Her research centers on the dynamic interplay between mood and glucose management, with a particular emphasis on how real-world emotional and contextual factors influence diabetes self-care. She leverages digital health tools—such as mobile assessments and wearable technologies—to better understand daily lived experiences and to develop more personalized, data-driven interventions. Her work aims to reduce diabetes burden and improve quality of life for young people with diabetes.

Research Interests

Dr. Shapira’s research focuses on leveraging technology to improve psychosocial and health outcomes for adolescents and young adults with type 1 diabetes (T1D). Her work uses rigorous, real-world methodologies to collect rich, multimodal data to elucidate the role of emotional, behavioral, and contextual factors in shaping glucose patterns and self-care.

By integrating tools such as mobile ecological momentary assessment and wearable technologies, her research seeks to advance more context-aware, individualized approaches to care that reduce burden, optimize diabetes self-care, and improve health outcomes for young people with T1D.

Education

Undergraduate: IDC Herzliya (Israel), Psychology
Graduate School: Yeshiva University, Psychology
Residency: Northport VA
Fellowship: Joslin Diabetes Center

Publications

Shapira A, Volkening LK, Markowitz JT, Butler DA, Laffel LM. Mental Health Providers' Assessment of Parents' Reactions to their Children's Elevated Depressive Symptoms. Pediatr Diabetes. 2021 Mar;22(2):354-359. doi: 10.1111/pedi.13138. Epub 2020 Nov 4. PMID: 33030293; PMCID: PMC8988090.

Shapira A, Harrington KR, Goethals ER, Volkening LK, Laffel LM. Health-related quality of life in youth with type 1 diabetes: Associations with multiple comorbidities and mental health conditions. Diabet Med. 2021 Oct;38(10):e14617. doi: 10.1111/dme.14617. Epub 2021 Jun 19. PMID: 34060668; PMCID: PMC8429188.

Shapira A, Volkening LK, Borus JS, Laffel LM. Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) of Positive and Negative Affect and Associations with Blood Glucose (BG) in Teens with Type 1 Diabetes (T1D). J Diabetes Sci Technol. 2021 Jul 30:19322968211035451. doi: 10.1177/19322968211035451. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 34330178.

Harrington KR, Shapira A, Volkening LK, Butler DA, Anderson BJ, Wasserman RM, Laffel LM. Associations of diabetes self-management characteristics, HbA1c, and psychosocial outcomes with depressive symptoms in a contemporary sample of adolescents with type 1 diabetes. J Diabetes Complications. 2021 Mar;35(3):107838. doi: 10.1016/j.jdiacomp.2020.107838. Epub 2021 Jan 6. PMID: 33431226; PMCID: PMC7870579.

Hermanns N, Ehrmann D, Shapira A, Kulzer B, Schmitt A, Laffel L. Coordination of glucose monitoring, self-care behaviour and mental health: achieving precision monitoring in diabetes. Diabetologia. 2022 Apr 5. doi: 10.1007/s00125-022-05685-7. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 35380233.

Awards

Joslin Diabetes Center Pilot and Feasibility grant recipient, NIDDK, DRC (2025)
Career Development Award (K23) recipient from NIH/NIDDK (2023)
Breakthrough T1D (formerly JDRF) National Fellowship in Psychology (2019)
Dr. Lee and Linda Rosenbaum Family Award for Excellence in Clinical Health Psychology, Ferkauf Graduate School (2019)