The Directory

Dr. Alkin is director of the Behavioral Therapy Development Program (BTDP) within the Division of Therapeutics and Medical Consequences at NIDA. The overarching goal of BTDP is to produce efficacious, implementable and self-sustaining treatments for substance use disorders. BTDP supports Stage I (treatment generation, refinement), Stage II (efficacy), and Stage III (efficacy in the real-world) research. Research areas supported by BTDP include development of treatments targeting specific novel or insufficiently-studied behavioral and neurobehavioral processes (e.g., impulsivity, risk-taking propensity, decision-making), the examination of theory-derived treatment targets and mechanisms of behavior change, adherence, and studies that integrate behavioral/pharmacological, technology- and neuromodulatory-based treatment. Dr. Aklin received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Maryland. He completed his clinical residency at Yale University School of Medicine, and a post-doctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine—Behavioral Pharmacology Research Unit. He has received numerous awards and honors, including Early Career Investigator Awards from the College on Problem of Drug Dependence (CPDD) and the Association of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT). Dr. Aklin’s areas of research include the development of treatments targeting specific neurobehavioral processes (e.g., impulsivity, risk-taking, decision-making), the examination of theory-derived treatment targets and mechanisms of behavior change, adherence, and studies that integrate behavioral/pharmacological treatment. Dr. Aklin has extensive clinical research experience in behavioral and cognitive-behavioral treatment for substance dependence; adaptive brief interventions and adherence trials. He joined NIDA in 2008.

Dr. Almeida is a developmental psychologist with a primary focus on stress and coping during middle adulthood. His research interests center on the general question of how daily stressful experiences, such as work deadlines and arguments with family members, influence individual health and well-being. Almeida currently directs the NIA funded National Study of Daily Experiences (NSDE) a 20 year longitudinal study daily stress and health that is part of the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) study.  He is also the PI of the Penn State Site of the NICHD funded Work Family Health Network.  Both of these projects utilize intensive repeated measures embedded in a longitudinal design to examine daily stressors and health. Almeida developed the Daily Inventory of Stressful Events (DISE) as a tool for assessing multiple dimensions daily stressors Using this instrument, he has investigated how cumulative exposure and responses to daily stressors predict changes in global health reports (e.g., chronic conditions, functional impairment) and correlate with biological markers of health.

Dr. Belfer is a program director in the Basic and Mechanistic Research in Complementary and Integrative Health Branch at the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH). She joined NCCIH in March 2018. She oversees part of the NCCIH pain portfolio, with a focus on mechanisms underlying the effects of mind and body approaches and natural products on pain management. In addition, Dr. Belfer leads research programs related to genetic, genomic, and epigenetic mechanisms of complementary and integrative health approaches; neural mechanisms of meditative movement practices such as yoga, tai chi, and qi gong; cannabinoids and pain; and sleep and pain.

Dr. Bickel is an accomplished scholar and researcher in addiction and health behavior research. He received his Ph.D. in developmental and child psychology from the University of Kansas and completed post-doctoral training at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.  He has led research programs at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, the University of Vermont, and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. He currently leads NIH-funded research programs at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute.  He is the recipient of numerous awards and honors including the 2016 Nathan B. Eddy Award for outstanding research. Dr. Bickel has co-edited five books and published over 350 papers and chapters.  His work is frequently cited and receives national and international recognition.

Dr. Birk is an Instructor in Medical Sciences at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in the Center for Behavioral Cardiovascular Health. Prior to this position he completed his doctoral training in experimental psychology at Tufts University and postdoctoral training at Teachers College, Columbia University. His research focuses on the influence of emotions and their regulation on cardiovascular health. One goal of this research, exemplified by this R21 SOBC project, is to investigate how negative emotions that arise due to serious medical conditions may reduce patients’ engagement in health behaviors. A second research goal concerns the health effects of different strategies for regulating emotion. For example, perseverative thinking involves ruminating about the past or worrying about the future and is generally regarded as a maladaptive regulatory strategy. Dr. Birk and colleagues investigate how the occurrence and duration of perseverative thoughts may contribute to heightened blood pressure by cognitively prolonging the stress response. A third research goal is to understand the behavioral and physiological pathways by which depression and post-traumatic stress disorder have adverse effects on long-term health outcomes.

Dr. Brewer is an internationally known thought leader in the field of habit change and the “science of self-mastery”, having combined over 20 years of experience with mindfulness training with his scientific research therein. He is the Director of Research and Innovation at Brown University’s Mindfulness Center and associate professor of psychiatry at the Medical School. Dr. Brewer has developed novel mindfulness programs for behavior change, including both in-person and app-based treatments for smoking, emotional eating, and anxiety. His current research interests include the intersection between mindfulness, emotion regulation and behavior change. His lab is studying this via multiple modes, including linking theoretical models to behavioral and neurobiological mechanisms of action using experience sampling (aka ecological momentary assessment), EEG (e.g. source-estimated EEG neurofeedback), and fMRI methodologies. Additionally, his work bridges basic and clinical sciences through translational research that includes design, testing, and implementation of digital therapeutics in real-world settings. His work has been featured on 60 minutes, at TED.com (4th most viewed talk of 2016 with over 10 Million views), in documentaries, books and news outlets across the world. He is the author of The Craving Mind: from cigarettes to smartphones to love, why we get hooked and how we can break bad habits (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017).

Dr. Britton earned a B.A. in Neuroscience and a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology. She is the recipient of two National Research Service Awards (NRSA) and a Career Development Award (CDA) from NIH. She is currently the Director of Brown’s Clinical and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory, which investigates the psychophysiological (EEG, EMG, EKG) and neurocognitive effects of cognitive training and mindfulness-based interventions for mood and anxiety disorders. Research questions investigate which cognitive training practices are best or worst suited for which types of conditions and why, moderators of treatment outcome, practice-specific effects, and adverse effects. Current NIH-funded studies include a 3-armed RCT  entitled “Dismantling Mindfulness” that compares the effects of three different types of meditation training programs on pre-frontal cortex functioning in depression; and a collaborative infrastructure grant (UH2) with Harvard and UMASS entitled “Mindfulness Influences on Self-Regulation: Mental and Physical Health Implications”.  An interdisciplinary qualitative study, funded by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) entitled “The Varieties of Contemplative Experience” is investigating under-reported and potentially challenging, distressing or impairing meditation-related effects in both the United States and India.

Dr. Catenacci is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine. Her specialties include: Internal Medicine, Board Certification (2001), Internal Medicine - Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism, Board Certification (2007). She completed her Undergraduate degree with a BS from the University of Notre Dame (IN) (1994) and completed medical school from Yale University School of Medicine (1998). She further completed her internship at Yale-New Haven Medical Center Program (1999) and Residency Program: Yale-New Haven Medical Center Program, Internal Medicine (2001) Yale-New Haven Medical Center Program, Chief Resident, Internal Medicine (2002). Dr. Catenacci's clinical interests include: Diabetes, General Endocrinology, Physical Activity and Weight Loss/Maintenance​.

Dr. Chen joined the Division of Neuroscience in 2007 as a Program Director for the Sensory/Motor Disorders of Aging portfolio, with a special interest in research related to pain, Parkinson's disease, and the associations of age-related sensory and motor changes with age-related neurodegenerative diseases. Dr. Chen graduated from the College of New Rochelle with a bachelor's degree in Chemistry and Biology. She received a master's degree of Medical Sciences from Harvard Medical School as part of the Harvard-Markey Medical Scientist Fellowship Program and completed her doctorate in Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Harvard University. Her Ph.D. research, under the tutelage of Dr. Michael E. Greenberg, focused on the examination of epigenetic mechanisms involved in the regulation of neural activity-dependent gene expression in the central nervous system. After brief postdoctoral training in proteomics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dr. Chen served as a Scientific Editor at Neuron/Cell Press with a special emphasis on systems neuroscience. Prior to coming to NIA, she worked in the Office of Cross-cutting Science and Scientific Technology at the National Institute of Mental Health.

Dr. Clark has been a program officer in the Behavioral and Social Sciences Research Branch [BSSRB] in the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research [NIDCR] since 2009. He maintains a portfolio of grants focusing on health services research, implementation science, economics, Electronic Dental Record meaningful use, and SBIRT [Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment] for tobacco, alcohol, drugs, and eating disorders. Prior to joining the NIDCR, Dr. Clark had an extensive work history in the substance abuse field including one year in the Division of Epidemiology, Services and Prevention Research at NIDA, four years of research at the University of Kentucky Center on Drug and Alcohol Research, and over 13 years of direct patient care at the VA Medical Center San Diego. Dr. Clark received his Dr.P.H. in epidemiology from the University of Kentucky and his M.P.H. in health services administration from San Diego State University.

Dr. Collier is a physician scientist who serves as Senior Advisor for Informatics and Clinical Research at the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS). NCATS was established in December of 2011 with a mission “to catalyze the generation of innovative methods and technologies that will enhance the development, testing, and implementation of diagnostics and therapeutics across a wide range of human diseases and conditions.” In her position, she is responsible for promoting innovation at the interface of biomedical informatics and clinical research. This includes informatics in support of clinical and translational research from data generation through analysis and dissemination of results. She ensures issues of human subjects’ protection and data privacy and confidentiality are acknowledged and addressed in these efforts. In this role, she engages with diverse partners and communities, from healthcare providers, industry, standards organizations, and other government agencies as well as throughout NIH. Prior to the establishment of NCATS, Dr. Collier served a similar role in the National Center for Research Resources. Previously, Dr. Collier was Acting Chief of the Clinical Immunology Branch and Chief of the Autoimmunity Section in the Division of Allergy, Immunology, and Transplantation at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Dr. Collier is a Phi Kappa Phi graduate of Auburn University and an Alpha Omega Alpha graduate of the University of Alabama in Birmingham School of Medicine. She is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, a member of the American Medical Informatics Association, and the Association for the Advancement of Science. She is board certified in internal medicine and in endocrinology and metabolic diseases. She is a member of the Senior Clinical Staff at the Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Cornelius conducts research focused on understanding health behaviors in the social context in which they are performed. In particular, her work explores processes of health-related power and influence, interdependence in change over time, and how partner support can both facilitate and/or undermine health-promoting behaviors. Recent projects include an examination of how the presence of close others (i.e., a spouse/partner, a child) in the Emergency Department (ED) impacts patients' ED experience, the effect of romantic partners on blood pressure both short and long term, and a qualitative study describing couples' experiences following an acute coronary syndrome (ACS). Dr. Cornelius is also exploring novel applications of dyadic analysis to interdependent, individual-level processes. As an RCC Co-Investigator, Dr. Cornelius oversees the scientific development of the Measures Repository and works with external scientists for Repository engagement and data processes.

Dr. Czajkowski, joined the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) in 1987. She is an expert on psychosocial aspects of disease, including the role of social support and depression on disease risk and recovery and the assessment of health-related quality of life and psychosocial functioning in patients with heart, lung, and blood diseases. In her work as a research psychologist at NHLBI, Dr. Czajkowski develops and manages several programs of research within the Behavioral Medicine Scientific Research Group, Division of Prevention and Population Sciences. She is Project Officer for the Enhancing Recovery in Coronary Heart Disease (ENRICHD) Patients Study, a multicenter clinical trial which evaluated the effects of treating depression and low social support in recent heart attack patients. Dr. Czajkowski also is Project Officer of a study which assessed the post-surgical adjustment of men and women coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery patients. In addition, she manages several research initiatives involving improvement of adherence to lifestyle and medical therapies in patient populations, including minority patients and the medically underserved. In her role as NHLBI Coordinator of Health-Related Quality of Life Studies, she provides guidance to Institute staff and clinical investigators in the design, implementation, and analysis of the health-related quality of life outcomes of patients enrolled in Institute-sponsored clinical research studies. Dr. Czajkowski received her Ph.D.in psychology from the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP) in 1985. She received her MA in psychology from UMCP in 1981 and graduated summa cum laude in 1978 with a BA from George Mason University, Fairfax, VA. Dr. Czajkowski has authored or coauthored over 40 articles on psychosocial aspects of disease. She is a fellow in the Society of Behavioral Medicine, and a member of the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research.

Dr. Davidson is the Senior Vice President of Research and Dean of Academic Affairs and Professor at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, at Northwell Health.  A clinical health psychologist by training, her program of research focuses on the relationship between psychosocial risk factors and their role in the course and outcome of cardiovascular disease.  Most recently Dr. Davidson conducted an NIH-funded randomized controlled trial to test if enhanced depression treatment vs current treatment improves healthcare costs and depression in acute coronary disease patients at sites across the U.S.  Dr. Davidson received her PhD in clinical psychology and her master’s degree in industrial and organizational psychology from the University of Waterloo. She has published more than 200 peer reviewed articles and book chapters, has been an NIH-funded principle investigator on over 20 grants, and is an expert in behavior and system interventions.

Dr. Edmondson is an Associate Professor of Behavioral Medicine in the Departments of Medicine and Psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC), and Director of the Center for Behavioral Cardiovascular Health at CUMC. He is currently the director of Resource and Coordinating Center of the NIH Science of Behavior Change Program, which aims to identify and measure the underlying mechanisms of behavior change using an experimental medicine approach. His research on stress, health behaviors, and cardiovascular risk has been featured in the New York Times, ABC Nightly News, CBS This Morning, and other print and media outlets.

Dr. Epstein is SUNY Distinguished Professor in the Departments of Pediatrics and Community Health and Health Behavior at the University of Buffalo, and the Chief of the Division of Behavioral Medicine. Dr. Epstein’s research interests focus on health behavior change and determinants of eating, physical activity and drug self-administration.  Dr. Epstein is an internationally recognized authority in the fields of childhood overweight, physical activity, weight control and family intervention. For the past 25 years, Dr. Epstein has conducted research relevant to the prevention and treatment of childhood obesity, including mechanisms that regulate intake and energy expenditure in children. He is a fellow in numerous scientific organizations including the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and has been the President of the division of Health Psychology, APA, and recipient of the American Psychological Association Award for Outstanding Contributions to Health Psychology.  Dr. Epstein chaired the Behavioral Medicine Study Section, NIH, and served on the Advisory Board for Center for Scientific Research, NIH.  Dr. Epstein has published over 400 scientific papers and three books.

Dr. Ferrer, was a post-doctoral Cancer Research and Training Award Fellow in the Behavioral Research Program's (BRP) Office of the Associate Director (OAD) at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Dr. Ferrer received a doctorate in social psychology from the University of Connecticut and holds a bachelor's degree in decision science from Carnegie Mellon University. During her fellowship, Dr. Ferrer's program of research centered on social psychological processes in health-related judgment and decision making and behavior change. She was particularly interested in examining the relationships among emotional and social-cognitive predictors of behavior, including how emotion might moderate the association between social-cognitive predictors and health behavior. This program of research reflected a multidisciplinary approach, drawing from the fields of decision science, social psychology, and health psychology. Her work focused primarily on cancer prevention behaviors such as nutrition, physical activity, and cancer screening, as well as HIV preventive behaviors such as condom use. She was also actively involved in the NCI's Theories Project, which aims to identify and execute research that will further the field of health behavior theory, including critical thought about and comparison of theory, integrative theory testing, and integration of theory into health behavior change interventions. After the completion of her NCI fellowship, Dr. Ferrer transitioned into her current position as a Program Director for the Basic Biobehavioral and Psychological Sciences Branch within the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences.

Dr. Esposito is a program director in the Child Development and Behavior (CDB) Branch where her portfolio includes research on social and emotional development in children and adolescents, child and family processes, human-animal interaction, and childhood obesity.  Dr. Esposito completed her Ph.D. in social psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University and master's degree in clinical psychology at the University of Hartford. Prior to her position at NICHD, Dr. Esposito was a science policy fellow with the Society for Research in Child Development and the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences. Her prior research and clinical work focused on peer victimization, aggression, psychosocial functioning and adjustment in children, and child psychopathology.

Dr. Gorin is a Professor of Psychological Sciences at the University of Connecticut where she also serves as Director of the Institute for Collaboration on Health, Intervention, and Policy (InCHIP).  InCHIP supports the development of health-related science across UConn campuses and strives to foster strong interdisciplinary research with the goal of improving public health.  Dr. Gorin’s own research focuses on developing innovative treatment strategies to improve weight loss and maintenance with an emphasis on interpersonal and environmental processes that impact weight management. Her work has established that weight loss programs have ripple effects on untreated household members and that the home environment is a critical context in which to intervene on eating and exercise behaviors. Dr. Gorin has developed and evaluated dyadic-based weight management interventions that have allowed for theory-based examinations of interpersonal mediators of behavior change.  Her current research is examining how best to intervene with couples to promote weight management, whether a peer-based program can improve weight loss maintenance, and how individual-level executive functioning skills and the support environment interact to influence weight regulating behaviors.

Dr. Harvey is a Professor of Clinical Psychology, and Director of the Golden Bear Sleep and Mood Research Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley. Her clinical training and PhD were completed in Sydney, Australia. Dr. Harvey then moved to the University of Oxford as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Psychiatry and then became a faculty member in the Department of Experimental Psychology at Oxford. She was also a Fellow of St. Anne’s College. In 2004, she moved to UC Berkeley. Dr. Harvey's research is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIMH, NICHD, and NIDA). The studies currently in progress are focused on sleep disturbance in teens, in adults with severe mental illness, and in adults with depression. Dr. Harvey's research has been acknowledged with various awards, including from the American Association for Behavior Therapy, and NARSAD. Dr. Harvey has also been awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Orebro, Sweden and is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science.

Dr. Hoge is a board-certified psychiatrist. She studies biological changes that occur in the body as a result of stress and trauma, which may serve as markers for anxiety disorders and may elucidate pathophysiology of these disorders and indicate pathways that could be targeted for novel pharmacologic therapies. Her work also focuses on identifying biological markers of resilience which may protect some people from developing anxiety disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder after a trauma. Dr. Hoge has received awards from the Anxiety Disorders Association of America and the New Clinical Drug Evaluation Unit of the National Institute of Mental Health related to her work in anxiety disorders. She also received a Harvard Medical School Dupont Warren Fellowship award to study the effect of treatment for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. Dr. Hoge also received a five-year NIH grant to measure the effect of meditation training on anxiety and biological markers of stress, such as stress hormones and inflammatory markers. Recently Dr. Hoge also was awarded a CIMIT Innovation grant to examine the effect of the neuropeptide oxytocin on memory consolidation.

Dr. Hughes-Halbert is a nationally recognized expert in cancer prevention and control among diverse populations. Her research is supported by numerous grants from the National Cancer Institute and the National Human Genome Research Institute.  Dr. Hughes-Halbert is also PI of an academic-community partnership funded by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities to develop community-based interventions to improve health outcomes in African Americans.  The results of Dr. Hughes-Halbert’s research have been published in influential journals in the fields of cancer prevention, clinical oncology, medicine, genetics, and public health.  She is a member of the Board of Scientific Advisors at the National Cancer Institute. Dr. Hughes-Halbert's academic focus is on,  identifying sociocultural, psychological and environmental determinants of minority health and health disparities, as well as disseminating efficacious strategies into clinic and community settings.

Dr. Leahey is an Associate Professor in the Department of Allied Health Sciences and Co-Director of the UConn Weight Management Research Group. She completed her clinical psychology internship and post-doctoral fellowship at Brown University with specializations in behavioral medicine and lifestyle interventions for obesity treatment. Dr. Leahey is a leader in the field of behavioral interventions for weight loss and weight loss maintenance. Her research focuses on developing and evaluating cost-effective lifestyle interventions for obesity treatment and on testing new approaches for weight loss maintenance. Specifically, Dr. Leahey is currently PI or Co-I on several large NIH trials that involve examining the effects of patient-provided care, web-based technologies, and behavioral economics strategies to promote weight loss or weight maintenance. Her research has been continuously funded by the NIH throughout her career. She was a standing member of the NIH's Psychosocial Risk and Disease Prevention Study Section, has served as Chair or Co-Chair of NIH grant review panels, reviews for over 30 scientific journals, has over 50 publications, and serves on the editorial boards of several journals.

Dr. Mackiewicz-Seghete earned her doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Colorado Boulder, completing her clinical internship in the Department of Child Psychiatry at the University of Illinois Medical Center in Chicago. After graduation, she completed a two-year NIAAA postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Behavioral Neuroscience at OHSU. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at OHSU. Her basic research interests are focused on executive function, cognitive and affective neurobiological markers of risk for psychopathology, and the effect of childhood maltreatment on cognitive and affective brain processes across the lifespan. Additionally, Dr. Mackiewicz Seghete is interested in directly bridging basic neuroimaging work with clinical research on preventative interventions. As such, her current work as a part of the SOBC network is focused on examining the neurobiological mechanisms of action of a preventative, perinatal mindfulness-based intervention (Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy) in women at heightened risk of postpartum depression. Dr. Mackiewicz Seghete’s research is strongly influenced by her areas of clinical work and expertise, which include pediatric neuropsychology, interpersonal trauma, mindfulness-based interventions, and dyadic work.

Dr. McHugh is an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School and an Associate Psychologist in the Division of Alcohol and Drug Abuse at McLean Hospital. She engages in a program of clinical and translational research focusing on the nature and treatment of anxiety and substance use disorders. She is particularly interested in the study of affective vulnerability factors, such as distress intolerance and stress reactivity, that are common across psychological disorders, with a focus on those that can be modified with treatment. Additionally, Dr. McHugh conducts research on the dissemination and implementation of evidence-based treatments, with a particular focus on behavioral therapies. She has published more than 100 manuscripts and book chapters as well as an edited book published by Oxford University Press. Dr. McHugh is a recipient of a number of awards, including the David Shakow Early Career Award for Distinguished Scientific Contribution to Clinical Psychology and the Theodore Blau Early Career Award for Outstanding Contribution to Professional Clinical Psychology.Her current research is funded by grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. She serves on several journal editorial boards and is an Associate Editor of Behavior Therapy. Dr. McHugh is also a practicing psychologist and specializes in cognitive behavioral therapy for depression, anxiety, and substance use disorders.

Dr. Green is Chief of the Basic Biobehavioral and Psychological Sciences Branch (BBPSB), Behavioral Research Program (BRP), Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences (DCCPS), at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Dr. Green has served as a Program Director in the BBPSB since 2001. In that role, she cultivates the growth of the biobehavioral research portfolio that focuses on elucidating biological mechanisms of psychosocial effects on health and disease. Prior to joining the NCI, Dr. Green was a research psychologist at Howard University Cancer Center (HUCC) and a faculty member in the Department of Medicine at Howard University College of Medicine. Her research interests included stress and immunity within a cancer risk context, the influence of behavioral factors on breast cancer risk and survival, and the perceptions and knowledge of breast cancer and early detection behaviors among women residing in public housing. Dr. Green received her undergraduate degree in Psychology and her Doctorate in Clinical Psychology from the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida. Her doctoral training included an emphasis on behavioral medicine and psychophysiology within the context of cardiovascular disease. Dr. Green completed her clinical psychology internship, with specialization in health psychology, at the Brown University Clinical Psychology Internship Consortium and postdoctoral fellowships at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and the HUCC. In 2005, she received a Master of Public Health degree from Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. In 2009, she was elected to the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research.

Dr. Haushofer is Assistant Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs in the Department of Psychology and the Woodrow Wilson School. His research interests lie at the intersection of neurobiology, behavioral economics, and development economics. His research asks whether poverty has particular psychological and neurobiological consequences, and whether these consequences, in turn, affect economic behavior. To answer these questions, he combines laboratory experiments with randomized controlled trials of development programs such as health insurance and unconditional cash transfers in Kenya and Sierra Leone. In 2011 Johannes started the Busara Center for Behavioral Economics in Nairobi, a research facility for behavioral economics studies with respondents from the Nairobiinformal settlements. Johannes has a BA in Psychology, Physiology and Philosophy from Oxford, a PhD in Neurobiology from Harvard, a PhD in Economics from Zurich, and was most recently a Prize Fellow in Economics at Harvard and the Jameel Poverty Action Lab at MIT.

Dr. Heyman is co-director of the Family Translational Research Group and Professor in the Faculty of Health at New York University. His research program has focused on the development and maintenance of family problems, with a strong focus on family maltreatment and relationship distress. Dr. Heyman's current studies investigate these phenomena from the most microsocial (e.g., What dyadic processes underlie both anger de-escalation and coercive escalation? What are the mechanisms through which these processes impact health?) to the most macrosocial (e.g., Is it possible to drive down the prevalence of IPV, child maltreatment, suicidality, and substance problems by intervening on a population's risk factors, not on the problems themselves?). Recent research also includes doctor-patient communication and dissemination of effective treatments for a variety of outcomes. Dr. Heyman's research includes a focus on methodological issues, especially on identifying and rectifying problems with measurement tools. Dr. Heyman created the Rapid Marital Interaction Coding System, the most widely used system currently active for observing couples, and directs its coding center (which codes couples observations for the FTRG and for labs across the world). He received his PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Oregon.

Dr. Hunter is the Director of Behavioral Research at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK).  Dr. Hunter obtained her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from The University of Memphis and completed her psychology internship at Wilford Hall Medical Center in 1997. She completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Clinical Health Psychology in 2001 and was Board Certified in Clinical Health Psychology in 2005 by the American Board of Professional Psychology. Prior to joining NIDDK in 2006 as a Public Health Service officer, she served on active duty in the U.S. Air Force for ten years in a variety of clinical, management, research, and policy positions. At NIDDK she is responsible for managing a portfolio of behavioral research related to the prevention and treatment of diabetes and obesity. This portfolio includes basic behavioral science in humans, translation of basic behavioral science finding into novel interventions, and intervention trials. Her interests include mechanisms of behavioral change with a specific focus on identifying behavioral and psychological phenotypes that can inform more targeted and efficacious interventions and improve the understanding of individual differences in treatment response.

Dr. Jean King is an active neuroscientist and Professor of Psychiatry, Radiology, and Neurology (with tenure) at UMass Medical School, where she has been a faculty member since 1994. Her current research interests include the utilization of novel multi-modal neuroimaging techniques to explore the impact of stressors and addiction on neural networks, as well as neural mechanisms underlying resilience to stressors.  In that regard her lab is assessing the role of meditation in altering brain circuits that facilitate behavioral change and vulnerability/resilience to stress. Dr. King also has significant leadership roles in the scientific and academic communities, at the national and international level as well as within her home institution. At UMass Medical School, she is currently the Vice Provost for Biomedical Research and Director of the Center for Comparative NeuroImaging.

Dr. Jonathan King received his Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology from Carnegie Mellon University. His post-doctoral work in cognitive neuroscience at the Department of Cognitive Science at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) focused on language processing and working memory in both younger and older adults. Dr. King later joined the faculty in the Department of Psychological Sciences and the Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Program at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He joined the Biobehavioral and Behavioral Processes IRG at the Center for Scientific Review at NIH in 2006, and is currently working as the Program Director for Cognitive Aging, Behavioral Genetics, and Human Factors in the Division of Behavioral and Social Research (BSR) at the National Institute on Aging. While at BSR, he has coordinated new initiatives in cognitive interventions to remediate age-related cognitive decline and the use of behavioral economic approaches both to promote health behavior change in older adults and to increase the uptake of comparative effectiveness research. His portfolio includes cognitive aging and cognitive interventions; human factors in older adults, especially driving; technology use by older adults; statistical methods for aging research; genetics of social behavior; and interplay of genetics and social, psychological and behavioral processes across the lifespan. Dr. King is also the co-Coordinator for the NIH Science of Behavior Change Common Fund Program.

Dr. Rosalind King is a Health Scientist Administrator in the Population Dynamics Branch (PDB) in the Division of Extramural Research at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).  She directs portfolios of research grants on life course health; biopsychosocial research; and fertility, infertility, kinship, & adoption. She also manages the Population Dynamics Scientist Development Award (K01) program.  Dr. King received her doctorate degree in Sociology and Demography from the University of Pennsylvania, and held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  During this period, she analyzed data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) and the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG).  Since joining PDB in 2002, she has directed programs on the interrelationships between work, family, and health; child development and poverty; and sleep and the social environment.  She also oversees the NICHD Interagency Agreement with the National Center for Health Statistics to support the NSFG. She has published on methodological approaches for measuring infertility with population-level data, the use of infertility services and assisted reproductive technologies in the United States, and the effects of a work-family intervention on adolescent and adult health.

Dr. Loucks is an Assistant Professor at Brown University in the School of Public Health. He has over 75 peer-reviewed publications, and focuses his research on identifying biological mechanisms by which social factors such as mindfulness, education, and early life adversity may influence cardiovascular disease. Dr. Loucks has generated research findings that have helped to better understand how biological factors such as inflammatory markers, epigenetics, blood pressure, obesity, lipids, amongst others, may be important mechanisms through which social factors could influence cardiovascular disease. He is now implementing practical applications of the work, including randomized controlled trials of mindfulness interventions to address social disparities in cardiovascular disease.

Dr. Ma is a professor of public health and medicine and director of the Center for Health Behavior Research in the Institute for Health Research and Policy at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is a dually trained MD and PhD scientist with expertise in preventive medicine, nutrition science, and biometry. Dr. Ma has devoted her career to developing new knowledge in precision lifestyle medicine science and translating it into clinical and public health practice to promote patient-centered population health management and health equality. Prior to joining the UIC in August 2015, Dr. Ma was a senior scientist at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation Research Institute and a consulting professor at Stanford University School of Medicine. Over the past 15 years, Dr. Ma have established a solid and progressive portfolio that embodies an integrative and transformative approach to actionable research, education, and outreach. Her Precision Lifestyle Medicine research portfolio is designed to: (1) Accelerate the process of translating biobehavioral research discoveries into treatments for diverse patient populations; (2) Train a new generation of clinical and translational researchers; and (3) Engage stakeholders and communities in clinical studies and dissemination and implementation efforts. Dr. Ma’s research seeks to address highly intractable health problems and disparities among racially/ethnically and socioeconomically diverse adult populations in private mixed-payer, managed care, and public health systems, and in communities. The primary foci are on new delivery models of behavioral interventions and neurophysiological mechanisms of behavior and behavior change in multiple major chronic conditions that are the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in the United States and globally. These include, but are not limited to, obesity, coronary heart disease, hypertension, prediabetes, metabolic syndrome, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and depression. Dr. Ma is particularly interested in effective prevention and control of these debilitating and costly chronic conditions through comprehensive, mechanism-driven lifestyle interventions that are individual patient-centered and, at the same time, scalable and sustainable for population health management through use of internet and mobile technologies. Her research is also focused on designing and evaluating lifestyle interventions specifically for underserved populations such as Blacks and Latinos. Furthermore, Dr. Ma has directed the development and publication of new randomization methods and software programs. In addition to her extensive experience leading rigorous experiments ranging from pilot randomized studies to multicenter pragmatic trials, she have also published frequently on national patterns of outpatient care quality and health disparities in lifestyle-related physical and mental health disorders using complex population survey datasets.

Dr. Marsch is the Director of the Center for Technology and Behavioral Health (CTBH; a P30 “Center of Excellence” supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse), the Director of the Northeast Node of the National Drug Abuse Clinical Trials Network, and the Andrew G. Wallace Professor within the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College.  As a national interdisciplinary Center, CTBH uses science to inform the development, evaluation, and strategic implementation of technology (web, mobile)-based self-regulation tools for substance use disorders and related behavioral health issues.  These tools are designed to deliver engaging and effective self-monitoring and self-management interventions to promote behavioral health and are designed to collectively lead to transformations in the delivery of science-based health care – by improving quality of care, access to care, and health outcomes, while reducing costs of care.  Dr. Marsch serves on the National Advisory Council to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Dr. Miller is a developmental psychologist who studies risk and resilience in children and families. Dr. Miller is an Associate Professor in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education (HBHE) in the UM School of Public Health. She was previously in the Department of Psychiatry (Division of Child and Family Psychiatry) at Brown Medical School. She is affiliated with Michigan’s Center for Human Growth and Development. Dr. Miller's research program focuses on how individual child factors, social relationships and contextual processes shape healthy development for children growing up in poverty and who have experienced adverse early life events. Self-regulation, managing stress and adversity, and the influence of social context are themes throughout her work. She also studies how the balance between biological, social-behavioral, and broader contextual influences can shift over time, and seeks to apply this developmental perspective to both inform our understanding of how developmental science can inform basic research on children’s health, as well as to improve health outcomes for young, high-risk children. Integrating a developmental science perspective is essential in order to address public health concerns that disproportionately affect low-income children. To achieve this goal, Dr. Miller collaborates with colleagues across disciplines and community partners to translate research findings into intervention approaches that may ultimately reduce health disparities and foster positive health and well-being outcomes for children and families.

Dr. Nielsen is Chief of the National Institute on Aging’s (NIA) Individual Behavioral Processes Branch, which supports behavioral, psychological and integrative biobehavioral research on the mechanistic pathways linking social and behavioral factors to health in mid-life and older age. This Branch examines aging processes across the full life course, including early life influences on later life outcomes, as well as research on behavioral and social processes in midlife that play a causal role in shaping trajectories of aging. Dr. Nielsen manages the Psychological Development and Integrative Science portfolio, which supports transdisciplinary research in affective science, health psychology, life-span developmental psychology, neuroeconomics and social neuroscience. She coordinates NIA research initiatives on midlife reversibility of risk associated with early life adversity, conscientiousness and healthy aging, socioemotional influences on decision-making, subjective well-being, and stress measurement. She serves on the Implementation Team for the trans-NIH Science of Behavior Change (SOBC) Common Fund Program, which promotes a mechanisms-focused experimental medicine approach to behavior change intervention design. Nielsen is the Project Scientist on the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) Study, an NIA-funded national longitudinal study of health and well-being. She has a BA in Philosophy from Rhodes College, MA in Psychology (cand. Psych.) from the University of Copenhagen, and a PhD in Cognitive Psychology and Cognitive Science from the University of Arizona. She held an NIA-funded NRSA Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Psychology of Aging at Stanford University. Her scientific interests and research lie at the intersection of affective science and aging research.

Dr. Onken directs the Behavior Change and Interventions Program at the National Institute on Aging (NIA).  The goal of this program of research is to develop and test interventions that promote the health and well-being of individuals as they age.  Prior to joining NIA, Dr. Onken served as Chief of the Behavioral and Integrative Treatment Branch and the Associate Director for Treatment at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).  She has championed a conceptual framework for behavioral intervention development that stresses the integration of basic science within the intervention development process to produce potent and <a href="https://www.nia.nih.gov/research/dbsr/stage-model-behavioral-intervention-development">maximally implementable behavioral interventions</a>.  Dr. Onken received her Bachelor’s degree from Tufts University and her Master’s and Ph.D. degree in clinical psychology from Northwestern University.  She completed her clinical internship at Cook County Hospital and has subsequently held a variety of academic, clinical and research scientist positions at Northwestern University, the University of Illinois Medical School and Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.  In addition to her current involvement in the NIH Common Fund SOBC initiative, she has taken the lead in numerous trans-NIH initiatives related to behavioral intervention development.  She is a “Fellow” of the Association for Psychological Science and a consulting editor for the journal, “Clinical Psychological Science.”

Dr. Otto has had a major career focus on developing and validating new psychosocial treatments for anxiety, mood, psychotic, and substance use disorders, with a particular focus on treatment refractory populations. This includes a translational research agenda investigating brain-behavior relationships in therapeutic learning.  His focus on hard-to-treat conditions and principles underlying behavior-change failures led him to an additional focus on health behavior promotion, including investigations of addictive behaviors, medication adherence, sleep, and exercise.  Across these health behaviors, he has been concerned with cognitive, attention, and affective factors that derail adaptive behaviors, and the factors that can rescue these processes. He also investigates exercise as an intervention for affective and addictive disorders, as well as for cognitive enhancement. He has over 400 publications spanning his research interests, and Dr. Otto was identified as a “top producer” in the clinical empirical literature, and an ISI Highly Cited Researcher. He is a Past President and Fellow of the Association of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, is currently President and Fellow of Division 12 of the American Psychological Association, and is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science.

Dr. Penedo is the Sylvester Professor of Psychology and Medicine and Associate Director for Cancer Survivorship and Translational Behavioral Sciences at the University of Miami Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center. He also serves as program Co-Leader of the Cancer Control Program and Director of Survivorship. He earned a PhD in Clinical Health Psychology in 1999 from the University of Miami, and completed his clinical psychology residency at the University of Pittsburgh, Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic and the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Center. He is current President of the International Society of Behavioral Medicine. Dr. Penedo's research program is supported by several NIH funded studies that address the underlying psychosocial, sociocultural and biobehavioral mechanisms of chronic diseases processes and health outcomes. His current research program focuses on four broad domains of chronic disease management: Behavioral and Psychosocial Processes in Health Outcomes, Sociocultural Determinants of Health, Biobehavioral Mechanisms & Chronic Disease Management Interventions.

Dr. Perry has been a program leader in the Office of Strategic Coordination since 2007, overseeing the development, implementation and assessment of several cutting edge programs. Prior to joining the Office of the Director, Dr. Perry was a program director for the National Cancer Institute, where she oversaw a grant portfolio focused on research in aspects of molecular biology of particular relevance to cancer. Dr. Perry also maintains a laboratory at the National Cancer Institute, employing genetically engineered mice to explore the relationship between development and cancer. Her background in cancer research is founded on a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of North Carolina and post-doctoral fellowships at Princeton University and the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, London (now part of Cancer Research, UK). For seven years, she led a cancer research laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she succeeded in winning two NIH grants, publishing several papers, and training five Ph.D. students, two of whom are now professors.

Dr. Poldrack is the Albert Ray Lang Professor of Psychology at Stanford University and Director of the Center for Reproducible Neuroscience   His research uses brain imaging to understand the brain systems supporting decision making, executive control, and behavior change.  His lab also develops informatics tools to help make sense of the growing body of neuroimaging data (including the OpenfMRI.org and neurovault.org data sharing projects and the Cognitive Atlas ontology) as well as tools to help improve the reproducibility of neuroimaging research (including the Brain Imaging Data Structure and BIDS-Apps projects).  He also has one of the most intensely studied individual human brains ever, having been imaged more than 100 times as part of the MyConnectome project.

Dr. Riddle earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1991. During her time as a UCLA Bruin, Melissa learned behavioral approaches for treating autism, for conducting in-home family therapy, and for data management for community-based studies on HIV risk. Melissa earned a doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Arizona in 1998. Her doctoral research combined family therapy and health psychology, asking questions related to how patients and their families cope with chronic or serious illness. In 1998, 3 days after defending her dissertation, Melissa started a 2 ½ year postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania. During this fellowship, her research and clinical care focused on the psychosocial impact of genetic testing for breast and ovarian cancer for women and their families. In 2001, Melissa joined the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health, overseeing a grants program on behavioral treatments for drug addiction and HIV risk behavior. She joined the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research in 2007, as chief of a new branch on behavioral and social sciences research. In 2008, she also became the coordinator of 9 large, NIH Roadmap-funded research consortia whose purpose is to bring an interdisciplinary approach to solving complex health problems. Melissa has been working with colleagues on the NIH Common Fund Science of Behavior Change initiative since it began. She sees tremendous promise in the SOBC experimental medicine approach to behavior change, focused on understanding how behavior change happens, and on infusing studies of causal mechanisms into every stage of behavior change research.

Dr. Scioli is a clinical psychologist and full time researcher at the VA Boston Healthcare System (VABHS) within the research service.  She is also an affiliate of the National Center for PTSD, Women’s Health Sciences Division (NCPTSD-WHSD) at VABHS and an assistant professor of psychiatry at the Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM).  Dr. Scioli’s research interests are at the intersection of medical and psychological health among Veterans and she specializes in treating chronic pain and PTSD.  Dr. Scioli’s currently funded NIH R21 study aims to use an innovative, translational, experimental medicine approach to study whether a progressive -based exercise program will help individuals suffering from CP/PTSD achieve exercise maintenance, and shared symptom reduction, through neuropeptide Y mediated improvements in putative factors (self-regulation and reward sensitivity) known to improve exercise related self-efficacy and motivation.

Dr. Simmons attended Yale University and the UCLA School of Medicine, where she obtained her M.D., Ph.D. in Neurosciences. She then completed a residency in General & Adult Psychiatry at Western Psychiatric Institute & Clinic. Dr. Simmons is currently Chief of the Affect, Social Behavior & Social Cognition Program within the Division of Neuroscience & Basic Behavioral Science at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Her program supports integrative systems-level approaches to understanding the fundamental neurobiological mechanisms governing affect, social behavior, and social cognition in humans and animals. Dr. Simmons serves on NIMH’s Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) working group, taking the lead for the “Social Processes” domain. Dr. Simmons also serves as NIMH’s representative to the NIH Office of Basic and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) and to OppNet, the trans-NIH initiative directed at strengthening basic behavioral and social science research opportunities at the NIH. With OppNet, she most recently served on the initiative development team for “Advancing Basic Behavioral and Social Research on Resilience.” With OBSSR, she is currently coordinating efforts toward developing a behavioral ontology. Dr. Simmons serves as a Project Scientist for the SOBC project led by Drs. Jun Ma and Leanne Williams, “Engaging self-regulation targets to understand the mechanisms of behavior change and improve mood and weight outcomes.”

Dr. Sliwinski is a neuropsychologist whose research examines how aspects of everyday experiences influence a person’s ability to memorize, reason and concentrate. Dr. Sliwinski studies the developmental pathways leading from stressful experiences to cognitive impairment in middle and older aged adults. His research links environmental influences (e.g., daily stressors, life events) to physiological dysregulation and cognitive decline via ruminative processes (e.g., intrusive thoughts). Dr. Sliwinski has also developed tools that use mobile technology to embed brief ambulatory cognitive assessments into ecological momentary assessment (EMA) and daily diary designs. His current research projects examine whether ambulatory approaches to cognitive assessment improve test reliability, ecological validity, and ultimately, the early detection of mild cognitive impairment (MCI), Alzheimer's disease and other types of dementia.

Dr. Slep received a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Stony Brook University in 1995. She is now Professor in the Department of Cariology and Comprehensive Care at NYU. Along with her collaborator, she co-directs the Family Translational Research Group, which includes an array of research staff and students focused on understanding violence in families. Dr. Slep’s research focuses on many different aspects of conflict and violence in relationships and families families: the development of dysfunctional parenting, the connections between parenting and partner conflict, the dynamics of conflict escalation and de-escalation in productive and destructive conflicts, what facets of exposure to violence impact children’s functioning and how these impacts can be buffered, and how to best prevent family violence. She is also focused on how communities can promote healthy relationship and improve population risk profiles. Her work on definitions of maltreatment has resulted in definitions that are now being used throughout the U.S. military, are being implemented across the state of Alaska, have influenced the DSM, and are being considered for the ICD-11. She has overseen a number of community-based prevention trials and longitudinal studies of representative samples. She has published over 100 scientific articles and book chapters and has received more 50 federal research grants to support her work. She is a licensed clinical psychologist.

Dr. Smyth is a Professor of Biobehavioral Health and Medicine at Penn State and Hershey Medical Center. He also serves as Associate Director of Penn State’s Social Science Research Institute. Most broadly, Dr. Smyth’s research reflects the application of the biopsychosocial model to meaningful health-related processes, contexts, and outcomes. Three more narrowly defined areas – and the integration between them – comprise the bulk of his research program: 1. What are the effects of experiencing stress or trauma on psychological and physical well-being and how can such effects be observed? 2. Can stress, affect, and health be assessed in a manner that permits the understanding of biopsychosocial processes in real time and in context? 3. Can psychological interventions improve health and well-being, both in healthy individuals and individuals with existing physical or psychiatric illness? Having published approximately 200 articles and chapters in both medical and psychological journals and books, Dr. Smyth has made important contributions to the understanding of stress and coping, psychological interventions, ambulatory naturalistic monitoring, pain, immune disorders, chronic illness, and eating behaviors. He has served as an editorial referee for more than three dozen journals, and is an active member of the American Psychosomatic Society, the Academy of Behavioral Medicine, and the Society of Behavioral Medicine. Dr. Smyth has shared his research in interviews with ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, PBS, Newsweek, Time and the New York Times. Dr. Smyth received his Ph.D. in Health and Social Psychology from Stony Brook University and his B.A. in Cognitive Science from Vassar College.

Dr. Stein is a research assistant professor in the VTCRI Center for Transformative Research on Health Behaviors. His research interests include behavioral economics, neuroeconomics, addiction, obesity, and health behavior.

Dr. Stoeckel directs the Mechanistic and Translational Decision Science in Aging Research Program in the Division of Behavioral and Social Research (BSR) at NIA. Dr. Stoeckel’s portfolio includes research in affective, reward/motivation, social, and decision neuroscience of aging; as well as fundamental and translational research on neuropsychological and behavioral phenotypes and mechanisms of behavior change relevant to both normal aging and Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia (AD/ADRD). Dr. Stoeckel has an AB in Psychology from Harvard College, PhD in Medical (Clinical) Psychology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and he completed internship and postdoctoral training in clinical neuropsychology and cognitive neuroscience at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard Medical School (HMS). Prior to joining the NIA, he was the Director of the Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience of Obesity and Diabetes program at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Prior to joining NIH, he was the Director of Clinical Neuroscience at the MGH Center for Addiction Medicine, Assistant Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at HMS, and a Visiting Scientist at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dr. Stoney is a health psychologist and psychophysiologist with specialization in behavioral cardiology. Dr. Stoney has wide-ranging expertise in the area of stress and cardiovascular disease with a special interest in studying the behavioral, physiological, environmental and psychological pathways by which stress and diseases of the heart and cardiovascular system are linked and modified. She is currently Program Director and Acting Deputy Branch Chief in the Clinical Applications and Prevention Branch in the Division of Cardiovascular Sciences at National Institutes of Health’s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.  She is involved in several trials that span the translational spectrum, including large randomized clinical trials, implementation and pragmatic trials, and research in basic behavioral science related to cardiovascular function. She is a faculty member for the NIH course on The Principles and Practice of Clinical Research, and Director of the NIH Summer Institute on Randomized Behavioral Clinical Trials. Prior to joining NIH, Dr. Stoney was Professor of Psychology at the Ohio State University, where she conducted laboratory and clinical investigations of phenotypes associated with patterns of coping with psychosocial stress and health, examinations of how psychological and social factors impact metabolic and inflammatory processes, clinical interventions to reduce physiological stress responses, and the biologic and cognitive mechanisms by which negative affect and depression may affect the progression of cardiovascular risk.  She is a fellow of the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research, the American Psychological Association, and the Society of Behavioral Medicine.

Dr. Tully is a Program Director in the Division of Extramural Science Programs at the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR), where she oversees a genomics portfolio that addresses the roles, interrelationships, or moderating influences of genes, environment, and behavior on symptom manifestation, disease risks, and patient outcomes. Dr. Tully additionally oversees a symptom management portfolio, which focuses on biobehavioral approaches to reduce or eliminate adverse symptoms resulting from chronic conditions. Prior to joining NIH, Dr. Tully was employed by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) - the research arm of the U.S. Department of Justice – where she served as the Deputy Chief of the Investigative and Forensic Sciences Division and the Program Manager of NIJ’s Forensic DNA Research and Development Program. Dr. Tully holds a Ph.D. in Medicine with a concentration in human genetics, a Master of Science degree in Forensic Sciences, and a BS in Medical Technology.

Dr. Weber joined NCCIH as a program director in 2009. She oversees NCCIH’s portfolio of health services research, studies of complementary medicine to promote of healthy behavior, and complex complementary/integrative medicine intervention research to include traditional Chinese medicine, naturopathy, integrative medicine, and Ayurveda. Dr. Weber’s interests include the use of complementary medicine interventions for common pediatric conditions, mental health conditions, promoting healthy behaviors, and health services research. Dr. Weber is the coordinator for NCCIH’s Preliminary Clinical Studies in Preparation for Large Interventional Trials of Complementary and Alternative Medicine Therapies (R34) program. She is also the NCCIH representative to the NIH Common Fund Science of Behavior Change program and the NIH Prevention Research Coordinating Committee. Dr. Weber earned a Doctorate of Philosophy in epidemiology and a Master of Public Health from the University of Washington. She earned a Doctorate of Naturopathic Medicine (N.D.) from Bastyr University. Prior to joining NCCIH, she was a research associate professor at Bastyr University, where her research included the study of herbal treatments for pediatric conditions. Her clinical practice focused on the treatment of children and adolescents with mental health conditions, abdominal pain, headaches, and allergies. She has published on echinacea’s effect on colds in children, naturopathic treatment of children, and complementary medicine treatments for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Her articles have appeared in JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, and Pediatrics.

Dr. Williams is Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. At Stanford Dr. Williams is developing new precision medicine models for mental health. She founded the Williams' Panlab for Precision Mental Health and Translational Neuroscience. She also leads department-wide initiatives in precision mental health as Associate Chair of Research Strategy and as the Chair of a research incubator that harnesses the activities of major labs focused on clinical translational neuroscience. She has a joint position at the Palo Alto VA Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Center where she is Director of education and dissemination, focused on post-traumatic stress and associated health issues. Dr. Williams first came to Stanford as a visiting Professor in 2011. At that time she was leading a multi-site international study to identify brain biomarkers for depression and antidepressant response. She was thrilled to join the Stanford faculty in 2013. Prior to this time she was foundation Professor of Cognitive Neuropsychiatry at the Sydney Medical School and Director of the interdisciplinary Sydney Brain Dynamics Center for 12 years. Her research programs center around three primary themes: 1. Defining and understanding the organization of large-scale human brain circuits and how these circuits generate complex human behaviors such as emotional response and regulation, cognitive control and self-reflective thought. Under this theme she integrates data across neuroimaging, behavioral, self-report and genetic modalities, and pursues new computational approaches to understand the linkages between these modalities; 2.  Identifying naturally occurring types of mental disorder characterized by disruptions to large-scale brain circuits and the associated impact on behavior and subjective experience. Under this approach she goes beyond traditional psychiatric diagnostic boundaries and also encompasses comborbid mental and general health issues and 3. Harnessing new insights from human neuroscience and related psychosocial factors in order to guide the choice among current treatment options and to help develop novel therapeutics, to improve outcomes for each person. Dr. Williams’ research has contributed over 250 publications to the field and attracted awards that include the $1M Pfizer Foundation Research award and the American Psychosomatic Society Presidential award.

Dr. Wilson is Distinguished Service Professor of the Department of Community Health Sciences and Clinical Professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases, College of Medicine. She has extensive experience in the development and evaluation of applied interventions to promote public health. The primary aims of Dr. Wilson’s research are to increase our understanding of the social, structural, and psychological causes of racial/ethnic and gender-based health disparities, and to contribute to the development, testing, and dissemination of interventions that improve health outcomes and quality of life among men and women. By focusing both on reducing risk factors and supporting social and psychological strengths and resources such as resilience and positive affect, she hopes to help support communities in achieving greater health, particularly as it relates to reducing risks for infectious diseases, promoting timely detection and treatment for disease, and staying actively engaged in care and adherent to medication regimens.