Distinguished Alumni ENGAGE Keynote Address Speakers

It Started at UCSB: Insights for Relationships and Health from Latino Culture

Social relationships can enhance the quality of life by conferring higher levels of subjective well-being, greater resilience against adverse circumstances, and better health. To obtain these benefits, humans must navigate a complex social world where self-interest must be balanced by other-interest. In this talk, I assert that Latino contexts are of theoretical and applied interest for studying these questions and present a series of studies that show that Latino cultural values that emphasize other interest are associated with benefits for relationship quality and have implications for health.

Bio:

Dr. Belinda Campos has a B.A. in Psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara and a Ph.D. in Social-Personality Psychology from the University of California, Berkeley. After completing her Ph.D., she held postdoctoral appointments at the University of California, Los Angeles in the Department of Psychology and the Department of Anthropology. She is Professor and Chair of the Department of Chicano/Latino Studies. Dr. Campos holds an affiliation appointment in the Department of Psychological Science in the School of Social Ecology and is also a faculty member in the Program in Medical Education for the Latino Community (PRIME-LC) in the School of Medicine.

Psychological science X virtual reality: A formula for health innovation

The interplay between virtual reality (VR) technology and psychological science represents a powerful opportunity, enabling unique ways of bridging laboratory precision with real-world and clinical relevance. This presentation draws from two decades of work to demonstrate how immersive technologies like VR are revolutionizing research, education, and practice in health and medicine. Based in extensive research on clinical simulation and behavioral measurement, we will examine how VR enables novel approaches to the study of critical health psychology topics including patient-provider interaction, effective communication about the future of genomic medicine, and health behavior intervention and assessment. This work leverages validated VR environments designed to capture nuanced behavioral data while maintaining ecological validity in areas such as food choice behavior and clinical decision-making. The talk will explore how
individual differences and motivational states moderate users’ experiences in VR settings, and how this can be leveraged for the development of precision interventions. Looking forward, we’ll discuss emerging research needs and opportunities as VR is more widely deployed in healthcare and beyond, and as it converges with AI, biosensors and the future internet. We’ll conclude by examining crucial psychological considerations for balancing technological innovation with privacy, autonomy, and equity.

Bio:

Dr. Susan Persky is an associate investigator within the Social and Behavioral Research Branch at the National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health. She heads the Health Communication and Behavior Unit and is the founding director of the Immersive Simulation Program - an emerging tech research lab, founded in 2006. Dr. Persky earned a BA in psychology from Northwestern University, and an MA and PhD in social psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara where she studied at the Research Center for Virtual Environments and Behavior. Throughout her career, she has examined the emergence of technological advancements, their influence on society, and ways to harness these innovations to improve research, medicine, and public health. She has published extensively in the areas of health communication, genomics, and virtual reality methods and application. She has provided scientific leadership through service on bodies such as the World Economic Forum Global Future Council
on Virtual and Augmented Reality and the Veteran’s Administration Immersive Executive Round Table. Dr. Persky has presented her research in venues such as the Smithsonian Institution and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.

Enhancing prediction and building novel interventions for youth at high risk for psychosis

Up to 1/3rd of adolescents and young adults showing risk signs and subtle symptoms (i.e., those meeting criteria for a clinical high-risk syndrome) will go on to develop a psychotic disorder such as schizophrenia in a two-year period. The syndrome has received a good deal of attention because if clinicians can intervene early, they may be able to lessen or prevent the progression of illness progression all together. But it is currently difficult to determine who is mostly likely to 

transition to formal psychosis and further, while treatments that are typically effective for formal  psychotic disorders show some promise here, limitations around cost, availability, and side effects, complexity unique to the risk syndrome (e.g., heterogeneity), and factors related to a  characteristically young and developing population (e.g., dynamic and changing treatment  targets, equi/multifinality) get in the way of adherence, clinically meaningful efficacy, or wide spread implementation. Novel risk-markers and treatments are required, but where will these come from? In this presentational I will discuss a series of studies from my laboratory that went  from naturalistic and exploratory work (detecting and confirming a signal), to experiments  (homing in on the problem), to pilot investigations (testing mechanism engagement and refining  parameters), and finally to the eventual implementation of randomized controlled trials aimed at  improving prediction and treatment of this critical population. First, I will discuss a program of research that interrogates overlap between mechanisms driving the onset of psychosis and circuits regulating the motor system, and present work that utilizes movement abnormalities to identify high-risk youth mostly likely to later develop psychosis. Next, I will turn toward discussing how findings of progressive hippocampal impairment in those at risk for psychosis eventually lead to the development of an efficacious exercise intervention targeting symptom progression. Finally, I will discuss barriers and resulting opportunities that have come up in the course these projects and provide suggestions for those looking to engage in similar work.  

Bio: 

Vijay Mittal is the David S. Holmes Professor of Brain Science at Northwestern University. He serves as the Chair of the Department of Psychology and holds an appointment in the Department of Psychiatry in Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine. He is on the faculty of the Northwestern Intradepartmental Neuroscience Initiative (NUIN) and the Institute for Policy Research (IPR). He also holds a faculty position in the Department of Medical Social Sciences, serves as the Co-Director of the Institute for Developmental Science training core, and is a consultant at The Family Institute. He conducted undergraduate training at the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB), graduate training at Emory University, and completed a specialized adolescent serious mental illness internship and postdoctoral program at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). Over the past several years Dr. Mittal has published over 300 articles working to understand causes behind mental illness among adolescents and young adults, and he specializes in early identification, assessment and treatments for youth at high-risk for psychosis. He founded the ADAPT research lab to help these individuals and their families. This work has garnered large scale extramural funding from federal sources as well as a number of private foundations. Mittal serves as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Science and Schizophrenia Bulletin, is a standing member of the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH) Adult Psychopathology and Disorders of Aging (APDA) study panel, and sits on the executive board for the Society for Research in Psychopathology. He has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors including the AT&T Research Chair, National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) BRAINS award, Society for Research in Psychopathology (SRP) Early Career Award, Federation for Brain and Behavioral Sciences (FABBS) Early Career Award, and Brain and Behavior Research Foundation Independent Investigator Award.

Latinx Health Paradoxes, Resilience, and the Pursuit of Health Equity 

Despite disproportionate risk, Hispanics/Latinx populations generally experience better health and live longer than non-Hispanics (NH) including NHWs: an epidemiological phenomenon known as the Hispanic or Latino health paradox. Over the past decade, our work has helped to raise the profile of comparative Hispanic health and contributed to a significant change its characterization from disparity to paradoxical advantage. The CDC now reports a longevity advantage for Hispanics v. NH Whites as 3.3 years and rising. This change has altered perceptions of Hispanic health, opened the door to investigating the causes of resilience, and spurred interest in more tailored risk estimation models. It has also highlighted limitations of current deficit models which are based solely on risk factors, and the need for a paradigm shift to asset models which incorporate resilience to more fully account for variance in outcomes. This talk will review these developments, describe ongoing work and partnerships, and broader career efforts dedicated to the pursuit of health equity for all. 

This event is co-sponsored by the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences' Advancing Faculty Diversity Award & the Psychological & Brain Sciences Alumni Council 

https://psych.ucsb.edu/alumni/psychological-brain-sciences-alumni-council 

Bio:

Dr. John M. Ruiz is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Arizona. He began his academic journey by earning a BA in Psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1991. He went on to complete a Ph.D. in clinical health psychology at the University of Utah in 2001 as well as a clinical internship and postdoctoral fellowship in cardiovascular behavioral medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Ruiz’s program of research focuses on psychosocial influences on health. His NIH-funded research examines relationships between individual level psychosocial factors, social behaviors, and cardiovascular and cancer diseases with an emphasis on biobehavioral mechanisms. In addition, Dr. Ruiz has recognized expertise in sociocultural aspects of racial/ethnic health disparities, particularly the epidemiological phenomenon referred to as the Hispanic Health Paradox. His work reflects a broad range of methodologies from laboratory to community-participatory research to population-level epidemiology. He is increasingly recognized for his efforts to advance health equity from local to national levels. 

Dr. Ruiz is the current President of the Behavioral Medicine Research Council (BMRC) and the Editor In-Chief of APA’s Health Psychology (2023-2028). He has active leadership roles in multiple professional societies including in the Society for Health Psychology, the American Psychosomatic Society, and the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research. Dr. Ruiz serves on the editorial boards of  several journals (Journal of Latina/o Psychology, Health Psychology, Annals of Behavioral Medicine,  Journal of Behavioral Medicine), is a recent associate editor for 4 journals (PLOS One, Cultural Diversity  and Ethnic Minority Psychology, Journal of Research in Personality) including Senior Associate Editor  of Annals of Behavioral Medicine, and has guest edited several special issues. Dr. Ruiz is also a leader in the push for health equity as Past Chair for APA’s Committee on Socioeconomic Status (CSES), member of the inaugural APA Health Equity Committee, and appointment to the 2021 APA Presidential Task Force on Health Equity for which he received a 2021 APA Presidential Citation. He is a permanent member of the NIH Behavioral Medicine Interventions and Outcomes (BMIO) study section, and he served on the external advisory board for NIH’s Science of Behavior Change (SOBC) effort. In 2022, Dr.  Ruiz began a 4-year, federal appointment to serve on the 16-member, US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF). Dr. Ruiz is an elected fellow of the American Psychosomatic Society, Association of Psychological Science, Society for Health Psychology (APA, Division 38), and the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research. 

At the University of Arizona, he is the Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity in the Department of  Psychology, founder and past Director of the Health Psychology doctoral training program, and is a  member of the Sarver Heart Center, the University of Arizona Cancer Center, the Center on Health  Disparities, Center on Aging, the Hispanic Center of Excellence, and the BIO 5 Institute. He has additional adjunct appoints in Public Health, Family Studies, and has served in a range of committees, task forces, and other university service roles.