Dr. Xavier is a nurse scientist, an interdisciplinary scholar, a board certified psychiatric mental-health nurse practitioner (PMHNP) and a nationally and internationally recognized leader in psychiatry and mental health nursing. Her expertise in the neuropsychiatric basis of mental illnesses, genetics and genomics, and biobehavioral methodologies. With over two decades of clinical experience, Dr. Xavier has worked across diverse psychiatric care settings, including involuntary and voluntary treatment facilities, community hospitals, state mental health systems, and outpatient psychiatry clinics, supporting individuals with various mental health disorders. Dr. Xavier’s lab has done pioneering work to further our understanding of the genomic basis of neuropsychiatric symptoms. As an example, her group published the first study on the genomic basis of impaired insight in schizophrenia, a clinically and functionally important symptom in schizophrenia that is a critical barrier to care.

Dr. Xavier’s ongoing program of research is centered on precision psychiatric care, with a focus on two key areas: (1) understanding neurobiological mechanisms that influence clinical and treatment outcomes in psychosis and schizophrenia, and (2) advancing psychiatric genomics to enhance clinical applications. Dr. Xavier's research spans mechanistic studies to clinical translational studies and her lab uses a variety of methods ranging from statistical-computational to biological models to advance precision care for psychiatric and mental health disorders. Her research and scholarship contributions have been recognized in her selection as a Fellow in both the American Academy of Nursing (AAN) and the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP). She is an editorial board member of two scientific journals serving as the International Society of Psychiatric Genetics Board Editor for the journal Psychiatric Genetics and an Academic Editor for the journal PLOS Mental Health.