Meet the Behavioral Research Program Featured Grantees

Basic Biobehavioral and Psychological Sciences (BBPSB)

  • Erin Costanzo , University of Wisconsin - Madison
    Health Psychologist and Behavioral Scientist

    "My personal experience as a cancer survivor and my clinical work with cancer patients has not only stimulated my research hypotheses and passions, but also highlighted the importance of translational work."
  • Carolyn Fang , Fox Chase Cancer Center
    Behavioral Scientist

    "Growing up, my family's cultural beliefs about the mind and the body shaped how I thought about health and illness. I have always been fascinated by questions concerning the complex interrelations that exist among psychosocial, behavioral, and biological systems."
  • Mariana Figueiro , Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
    Lighting Scientist

    "Light isn't just for vision. Light touches every aspect of our lives and can have a profound impact on our health and well-being. My research tool is a gift that Nature gives us daily: the sunrise and the sunset."
  • Patricia Ganz , University of California Los Angeles
    Clinician

    "I think our recent work finding biological support for the subjective complaints that cancer survivors experience has been most important in persuading skeptics who doubt the validity of patient-reported psychological and behavioral complaints."
  • Michael Irwin , University of California Los Angeles
    Psychiatric Clinical Translational Scientist

    "I discovered that sleep disturbance induced inflammation, and such inflammation can cause depressive symptoms, which together provide a compelling rationale for targeting sleep disturbance and/or inflammation to prevent depression."
  • Janice Kiecolt-Glaser , Ohio State University
    Behavioral Scientist

    "Stress is a fascinating variable. In our very first study, we found that the relatively mild stress of academic exams could dysregulate aspects of medical students' immune response – and lonelier students were more vulnerable to that stress."
  • Anita Kinney , University of Utah
    Behavioral Epidemiologist

    "Meeting with key stakeholders in rural Louisiana prior to implementing a BRCA1 testing study, I saw firsthand that translation of genetic discoveries into effective clinical interventions would be optimized if behavioral and social implications, along with cultural issues, were considered early in the process of scientific discovery."
  • Mark Laudenslager , University of Colorado Denver
    Psychoneuroimmunology and Endocrinology Researcher

    "My motivation and the scientific impetus toward development of interventions for caregivers came from my personal experience of caring for my mother as her primary caregiver during the last 5 years of her life."
  • Susan Lutgendorf , University of Iowa
    Behavioral Scientist

    "Two important discoveries with colleagues have helped shape my career: The realization that we could directly test relationships between biobehavioral factors and tumor growth factors; and the recognition that a recent HIV experiment utilized the in vitro model we were searching for in our cancer cell work."
  • Herbert Mathews , Loyola University Chicago
    Cellular and Molecular Scientist

    "An understanding of psychological, neuroendocrine, and immunological variables is essential to improvements in the overall health and quality of life of cancer patients."
  • Paula Pietromonaco , University of Massachusetts Amherst
    Social Psychologist and Behavioral Scientist

    "My graduate mentors, Robert Zajonc and Hazel Markus, taught me how to effectively bridge traditional disciplinary boundaries to arrive at elegant solutions to psychological puzzles."
  • Susan Schultz , University of Iowa
    Clinician and Clinical Researcher

    "As we have an increasingly complex older population, we have to find ways to maintain cognitive health in the same way we work to maintain physical health."
  • Anil Sood , MD Anderson Cancer Center
    Physician Scientist

    "For me the opportunity to collaborate with renowned colleagues have provided many exciting research moments."