The UCSF Research Team

Wendy Berry Mendes, PhD - Principal Investigator; Sarlo/Ekman Endowed Professor, Department of Psychiatry; Co-Director Stress Measurement Network

Dr. Mendes’ research focuses on how emotion and stress are manifested in brain and body responses using a variety of physiologic methods.

Amie Gordon, PhD - Assistant Professor

Dr. Gordon’s research draws upon social, personality, and health psychology to investigate the processes that influence interpersonal relationships and well-being. She is particularly interested in how these processes play out in daily life.

Aric Prather, PhD - Assistant Professor; Associate Director of the Stress Measurement Network

Dr. Prather’s research focuses on the inter-relationship between psychological stress and sleep as dynamic predictors of physical and mental health, utilizing epidemiologic, naturalistic, and laboratory based methods.

Elissa Epel, PhD - Professor; Director of the Aging, Metabolism, and Eating Lab; Co-Director Stress Network

Dr. Epel’s research aims to elucidate mechanisms of healthy aging, and to apply this basic science to scalable interventions that can reach vulnerable populations.

Alexandra Crosswell, PhD - Assistant Professor; Executive Director of the Stress Network

Dr. Crosswell studies the influence of stress across the lifespan on health outcomes in adulthood such as self-reported health, acute stress reactivity, and inflammation.

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Tessa West, PhD - Associate Professor

Dr. West’s research focuses on understanding the nature and dynamics of human perception, in particular how we perceive others in cross-race interactions.

Lauren Whitehurst, PhD - Assistant Professor

Dr. Whitehurst’s research interests broadly entail exploring processes during sleep that are important for health and cognitive function. Her research explores how autonomic and central nervous system factors interact to produce regulatory effects on sleep-dependent health and cognitive outcomes.

Michael Trujillo, PhD - Post-Doctoral Fellow

Dr. Trujillo’s research is centered on understanding how stigma “gets under the skin” to impact mental and physical health. His research is guided by ecological models that view stigma as a fundamental cause of health outcomes and examines how interpersonal, intrapersonal, and structural forms of stigma, particularly those relating to sexual orientation and gender identity, impact health disparities.

Kimberly Lockwood, PhD - Post-Doctoral Fellow

Dr. Lockwood’s research focuses on physiological mechanisms that link psychosocial stress with physical health, particularly cardiovascular disease. Her recent work explores how discrimination and other stressors may contribute to racial and socioeconomic disparities in cardiovascular disease risk.

David Newman, PhD - Post-Doctoral Fellow

Dr. Newman’s research is focused on understanding the dynamic processes of well-being in daily life with a particular emphasis on daily diary and Ecological Momentary Assessment methods.

Katherine Ross - Lab Manager

Katherine manages laboratory operations, oversees research studies, and ensures that the laboratory is running smoothly. She is interested in how sleep and other physical health behaviors affect psychological and emotional processes.

Sierra Semko - Project Director

Sierra oversees various studies in the laboratory and plays a key role in data collection and processing. She is interested in the embodiment of social experiences, such as racial discrimination, and the downstream effects on health and well-being.