Message from Chancellor Fox: One of UCSD’s greatest institutional strengths is the breadth and depth of faculty research on a range of important topics. Each month, Chancellor’s Corner will showcase cross-disciplinary faculty expertise in a specific area. I invite you to learn more about the work of these scholars, and I hope you share my pride in their achievements and their contributions to society.

STRESS

Joel E. Dimsdale, M.D.
Professor of Psychiatry
Joel Dimsdale is Professor of Psychiatry and co-leader of the Cancer Symptom Control Research Program at UCSD’s Moores Comprehensive Cancer Center. His clinical subspecialty is consultation psychiatry. He is an active investigator, a former career awardee of the American Heart Association, and is past-president of the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research, the American Psychosomatic Society, and the Society of Behavioral Medicine. His laboratory investigates the effects of psychological stress on cardiovascular functioning, sleep, and fatigue. More…

Igor Grant
Professor of Psychiatry; Director,
HIV Neurobehavioral Research Center; Director, Center
for Medicinal Cannabis Research, UCSD School of Medicine
Igor Grant is Professor of Psychiatry and Executive Vice-Chair of the Department of Psychiatry.  He is an expert in how humans cope with stress. He is interested in behavioral (neuropsychological) measures of reversible and irreversible disturbances in brain function.  His interests also include the association of life happenings to health status, and the role of factors such as coping skills, cognitive styles, social support, aging, and level of education as potential mediators in the association. More…

Steven D. Hickman, Psy.D.
Asst. Clin. Professor of Psychiatry
Steven Hickman is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry.  He is primarily a clinician, but is involved in clinical research on the topics of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, and the role of mindfulness in perception of pain, coping with chronic pain and illness, and ways in which clinical psychology can facilitate and enhance treatment of serious medical illness like cancer. More…

Vladimir J. Konecni
Professor, Department of Psychology
Vladamir Konecni is Professor of Psychology.  He is an expert in physiological/medical measures of emotion and stress, including aggressive behavior and the role of emotion in human conduct.  His other areas of expertise include law or legal psychology, including judicial decision-making, juries, expert-witness evidence, and eyewitness testimony, and the psychology of aesthetics, including the psychology of music, art, architecture and theatre. More…

James Kulik
Professor, Department of Psychology
James Kulik is Professor of Psychology.  He studies social psychological principles as they bear on health-related issues, including health promotion, coping, emotion, emotional contagion, and medical care delivery. Of particular interest are issues relevant to social comparison processes, social support, and stress and affiliation relationships in acute threat situations, e.g., surgical settings. Recently, he has begun to explore the neural underpinnings of emotion. More…

Morton Printz
Professor of Pharmacology
Morton Printz is Professor of Pharmacology.  His research focuses on finding the genes that are responsible for adverse stress-induced effects on the cardiovascular/autonomic system and then figuring out their molecular mechanisms. More…

Murray B. Stein, MD, FRCPC, MPH
Professor of Psychiatry In-Residence
La Jolla Village Professional Center
Murray Stein is Professor of Psychiatry and Family & Preventive Medicine and Director of the Anxiety & Traumatic Stress Program at UCSD and at the Department of Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System. His research interests include the neurobiology, epidemiology, and treatment of anxiety disorders including social phobia, panic disorder, and posttraumatic stress disorder. More…

Gordon Saxe
MD, PhD Assistant Adjunct Professor,
Family & Preventive Medicine
Cancer Prevention & Control Program
Dr. Gordon Saxe is Assistant Adjunct Professor of Family & Preventive Medicine.  His research focuses on the role of diet and lifestyle in cancer prevention and treatment, specifically whether dietary modification (increased whole cereal grains and vegetables, decreased saturated fat), reinforced by stress management training, can attenuate progression of biochemically recurrent prostate cancer. More…

** To learn more about other campus faculty scholars and areas of expertise, please visit the searchable UCSD Faculty Experts Database at: http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/facultyExperts/

** Read more Spotlight on Faculty Research topics