Health Psychology Faculty
The following faculty are accepting new students for the 2025-2026 academic year: Julienne Bower, A. Janet Tomiyama, Jennifer Sumner, Ted Robles, and Patrick Wilson. Annette Stanton is available as a secondary mentor.
Julienne Bower
Chair of Health Psychology and Professor
jbower@ucla.edu
Professor Bower’s research focuses broadly on mind-body interactions among individuals confronting stressful life events, particularly diagnosis with life-threatening illnesses such as cancer. She is particularly interested in the interactions among psychological and behavioral states, the brain, and the immune system and their effects on mental and physical health, as well as interventions targeting these systems to improve health and well-being.
Chris Dunkel Schetter
Distinguished Research Professor
dunkel@psych.ucla.edu
Professor Dunkel Schetter’s research focuses on stress processes in pregnancy and effects on maternal physical and mental health and infant health and development. She is also interested in biopsychosocial pathways to preterm delivery and low birthweight as well as cultural and socioeconomic influences health and health disparities and social support.
Theodore Robles
Professor
robles@psych.ucla.edu
Professor Robles’s research involves understanding how stress and social relationships influence health, with a focus on allostatic biological processes, which help individuals achieve physiological stability during stressful events; and restorative biological processes, which aid the individual in recovering after stressful events.
Annette Stanton
Distinguished Professor
astanton@ucla.edu
Professor Stanton’s research centers on specifying factors that help and hinder individuals as they adjust to health-related adversity. She is interested in testing theories of stress and coping and related conceptual models in individuals and couples confronting cancer and other chronically stressful experiences.
Jennifer Sumner
Associate Professor
jsumner@psych.ucla.edu
Professor Sumner‘s program of research lies at the intersection of the psychological and physical health consequences of trauma exposure. Her work examines the psychological and biological mechanisms linking trauma and severe stress with accelerated aging and risk for chronic disease, particularly cardiovascular disease.
A. Janet Tomiyama
Professor
tomiyama@psych.ucla.edu
Professor Tomiyama studies the intersection between eating behavior and stress. Her research examines the potentially negative psychological and biological consequences of weight stigma and dieting, as well as the efficacy of comfort eating.
Patrick Wilson
Professor
patrickawilson@ucla.edu
Professor Wilson is a community and health psychologist interested in how psychological, social, and cultural factors shape individual- and community-level health outcomes. Broad areas of interest include sexual health, substance use, and mental health and on health promotion interventions targeted toward racial/ethnic and sexual minority, youth and young adult, and vulnerable populations.