People

Nancy Adler, PhD

Professor, Psychiatry and Pediatrics

M_Psychiatry

My research spans two areas. One focuses on health behaviors, investigating why individuals engage in health-damaging behaviors and how their understanding of risk affects their choices. This research has primarily been in reproductive health, examining adolescent decision-making regarding contraception, conscious and preconscious motivation for pregnancy, perceptions of risk of sexually transmitted diseases, and use reproductive technologies for infertility.

Nicki Bush, PhD

Associate Professor

M_Psych-Core-Rsch

Dr. Bush’s research focuses on the manner in which early social contexts interface with individual differences to affect developmental trajectories across the life course. She examines how socioeconomic, parental, and environmental risks for maladaptive behavior and developmental psychopathology are modulated by individual differences in children’s temperamental, neurobiological, and genetic reactivity to stress.

Picture of Alexandra Crosswell, PhD

Alexandra Crosswell, PhD

Assistant Professor

M_Psych-LPPI-Rsch

Alexandra D. Crosswell is an Assistant Professor at the Center for Health and Community within the Department of Psychiatry at UCSF. She obtained her PhD in Health Psychology from UCLA in 2014.

Elissa Epel, PhD

Professor and Vice Chair of Adult Psychiatry

M_Psych-Core-Rsch

My research bridges health psychology, health disparities, neuroendocrinology, and cell biology. I am interested in the process of adaptation to chronic and acute stress, how different profiles lead to vulnerability vs. resilience, and how to transform toxic stress to positive stress. How does chronic stress lead to maladaptive coping and patterns of reactivity and biological changes at the cellular level? What does a 'thriving' response to stress look like? How can interventions promote better emotion regulation and cognitive function?

Aric Prather, PhD

Aric Prather, PhD

Associate Professor

M_Psych-Core-Rsch

Aric Prather is a psychologist who treats insomnia with individual cognitive behavioral therapy. He also provides behavioral therapy to help patients adjust to using their continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) equipment.

Prather's research focuses on how poor sleep impacts physical health and emotional well-being. He measures sleep habits to determine which study participants are vulnerable to sleep-related health problems and which are resilient, with the goal of developing new treatments.

Michelle A Albert, MD, MPH

Professor

Medicine

Dr. Michelle A. Albert, MD MPH is the Walter A. Haas-Lucie Stern Endowed Chair in Cardiology and Professor in Medicine at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF), Admissions Dean for UCSF Medical School and Director of the CeNter for the StUdy of AdveRsiTy and CardiovascUlaR DiseasE (NURTURE Center). Dr. Albert is a graduate of Haverford College, the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Harvard School of Public Health. She completed Internal Medicine Residency and served as Chief Medical Resident at Columbia University Medical Center in New York. Dr.

Abbey Alkon, RN, PhD, FAAN

Professor

N_FHCN-Operations

I am an Investigator at the UC Berkeley Center for Environmental Research and Children’s Health (CERCH) and Director of the UCSF California Childcare Health Program. I have over 20 years of clinical and research experience in the field of pediatrics, public health, and epidemiology. My research goals are to understand how the social and physical environment affects children’s health and development. My research program is community-based and focuses on low-income, underserved populations of children with multi-level and comprehensive measures of environments, physiology, and health.

Joaquin Anguera, PhD

Assistant Professor

M_Neurology

The body of research I developed during my graduate and postdoctoral training focused on characterizing & augmenting aspects of skill acquisition & cognitive control using behavioral and neuroimaging technologies. Creating a unique line of research that built upon these domains has involved a strong interdisciplinary emphasis, with these efforts centered on healthy young and older adults, as well as clinical populations involving ADHD, autism, and depressed individuals amongst others.

Photo of Lauren Asarnow, PhD

Lauren Asarnow, PhD

Associate Professor

M_Psych-Core-Rsch

Dr. Asarnow’s research program aims to reduce the burden of mental illness in youth by developing behavioral interventions that are effective, youth friendly, engaging, widely disseminable and easily accessible. Her program of research has primarily focused on sleep as a potential target for intervention in the prevention and treatment of mental and physical health problems. Dr. Asarnow has shown that late bedtime is an important target for early intervention for the prevention of adverse emotional, academic and physical health outcomes among youth.

W Boyce, MD

Professor Emeritus

M_PEDS-DEVELOPMENTAL MEDICINE

I have nearly 40 years of academic experience studying and measuring responsivity in the human stress response systems among young children and have mentored scores of young scientists employing such measures. I have been part of the teaching and mentoring faculty since my return to UCSF in 2013 and am pleased to contribute to teaching and training post-doctoral fellows from this grant.

 

Professional Honors and Awards: