Kim Coleman-Phox is the project director of Dr. Epel's U01 grant, Novel Interventions to Reduce Non-homeostatic Eating, which includes the Maternal Adiposity, Metabolism and Stress (MAMAS) and Stress, Eating, and Hormones (SHE) Studies. She completed her MPH in Maternal Child Health at UC Berkeley. Her research interests include pregnancy, birth outcomes, and health disparities.
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.
Dr. Nikko Da Paz holds a BA from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in Health Psychology from the University of California, Merced. Dr. Da Paz’s research investigates the science of stress, which includes stress effects on mental health and physiology, and psychological resources that protect from stress (stress resilience). She has conducted studies of interventions to promote resilience to stress in parental caregivers.
Brian Don is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. Prior to UCSF, he completed his PhD at Kent State University, a postdoctoral fellowship in Social Psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and was also an Assistant Professor in the Psychology Department at California Lutheran University. Brian's research focuses on close relationships, especially on how motivation, affect, and mindfulness influence the health and quality of key relational interactions.
Eve Ekman’s research interests were inspired by her experience as a medical social worker in the emergency department of San Francisco General Hospital, coupled with her training in the applied emotion regulation and mindfulness intervention, Cultivating Emotional Balance, CEB. Eve returned UC Berkeley–where she received her masters degree in 2006–for a doctorate from the Department of Social Welfare, to explore stress and positive coping among human service care providers, graduating in spring 2014.
Elissa Epel, Ph.D, is a Professor, and Vice Chair, in the Department of Psychiatry, at the University of California, San Francisco. Her research aims to elucidate mechanisms of healthy aging and to apply this basic science to scalable interventions that can reach vulnerable populations. She is the Co-Director of the Aging, Metabolism, and Emotions Center, and the Consortium for Obesity Assessment, Study, & Treatment, (COAST), and a Co-Director of the Center for Health and Community.
Jennifer Felder, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist dedicated to promoting mental health during pregnancy and early parenting. In her research, Dr. Felder evaluates treatments to improve sleep and prevent depression. She is committed to increasing access to evidence-based interventions, particularly among populations disproportionately affected by poor health outcomes. To this end, she investigates innovative formats for disseminating interventions, such as digital, co-located, and integrated services. In her clinical work, Dr.