Research Matters Podcast

Tony Biglan, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist at Oregon Research Institute and Co-Director of the Promise Neighborhood Research Consortium. For the past thirty years, he has conducted research in the development and prevention of child and adolescent problem behavior. He is a former president of the Society for Prevention Research and was a member of the Institute of Medicine Committee on Prevention. As a member of Oregon’s Alcohol and...

Dean McKay, Ph.D., A.B.B.P. is Professor of Psychology at Fordham University where he is a member of the clinical psychology doctoral program. His lab, Compulsive, Obsessive, and Anxiety Program (COAP) provides instruction to undergraduate, masters, and doctorate levels. Dr. McKay’s expertise is in anxiety and obsessive-compulsive behavior, with his current focus being on Covid-19 related stress and anxiety. He has further interest...

James Kirby, Ph.D., is a researcher and senior lecturer at the University of Queensland in Australia, who studies the effects of kindness and compassion. Jeff Kim, a graduate student under Dr. Kirby, joins my discussion with Dr. Kirby on measuring and incorporating physiological data into their research. Today’s conversation is focused on measuring heart rate variability.

Does the thought of practicing open science give you sweaty palms? That’s a normal reaction for those of us who weren’t formally trained in the open-science methodology. The sweaty-palm reaction is really not that surprising since most of us have gotten where we are today because we’ve been meticulous in our work and tried to put out the best work we possibly could. In a nutshell, we tend to be perfectionists.

Dr. Maria Karekla is an assistant professor at the University of Cyprus where she studies anxiety and cravings and specializes in utilizing psychophysiological measurements in her research. I decided to interview her because she has one of the few labs in the world that has done research comparing consumer grade wearable physiological measurement devices to research grade stationary devices. I was alerted to this work when I stumbl...

Todd Kashdan, PhD, is a professor of psychology at George Mason University, where he’s senior scientist at the Center for the Advancement of Wellbeing. He’s been a leading researcher in  positive psychology from when that area first started to blow up, but often plays the role of someone who challenges established wisdom in that area of research.

How many people do you know who have a personal mission
statement…and have it memorized…and actually live by it? Well, now you know of one more. Dr. Ken Weingardt’s personal mission statement is to “use technology to improve access to behavioral health services.”

Dr. Kelly Wilson is a recently retired, emeritus faculty at the University of Mississippi. He is a leading researcher, theorist, and trainer of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and an important contributor to clinical behavior analysis. He has published nine very well selling books.

Dr. Averill is an assistant professor in the Yale School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry and research fellow in the clinical neurosciences division of the National Center for PTSD VA Connecticut Healthcare System. Her research focuses primarily on studying the neurobiological mechanisms involved in ketamine as a treatment for PTSD and suicidality. Although Dr. Averill originally got her degree in counseling psychology, she la...

Shannon Wiltsey Stirman, PhD, of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University Medical School and is Acting Deputy Director, Dissemination and Training Division, National Center for PTSD. She’s a leading researcher in the area of disseminating evidence-based therapies. As part of this, she juggles two RO1 research grants from NIMH, working with multiple teams, and having team members scattered across t...

Dr. Alan Kooi Davis is an Assistant Professor of Social Work at The Ohio State University and an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Psychedelic Research Unit at Johns Hopkins University. He’s a researcher in the area of psychedelics, especially psilocybin, and how psychedelics can be used in treatment. He has also done research on harm reduction and drug use more generally, but in this episode we decided to focus on how he got into...

Joanna Arch is an associate professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She is also a member of the Cancer Center in the Division of Cancer Prevention and Control. Her research initially focused on anxiety disorders, but she’s recently added a focus on cancer patients. Being married to an oncologist and having a personal interest in existential issues helped her embrace her initial reservations about entering work on cancer, ...

Dr. Evan Forman is a professor of psychology at Drexel University and a director of the University’s “WELL Center” (Center for Weight, Eating and Lifestyle Science), an interdisciplinary clinic, research, and training center dedicated to developing and sharing innovative solutions to treat obesity, poor diet, sedentariness and disordered eating.