Congrats to DiSH Lab RA alumna Amie Adjakple, who will be attending the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University this fall! Amie says her time in the DiSH Lab gave her hands-on research experience that helped prepare her for this exciting next chapter. So excited for her future! 🩺 🎉

Excited to share that my Pop Syllabus episode, "GLP-1s and The Death of Body Positivity," with Christiana Mbakwe Medina is now live! We discuss the science behind weight stigma, stress, and eating behavior, and what the research tells us. Check out the full conversation on YouTube or Spotify! 🎧

Congratulations to DiSH Lab alumna Niki Nobahari, who will be attending the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA this fall!🎉 During her time in my lab, she gained valuable research experience helping with a study from pilot visits through final data collection. So excited for her next chapter!🩺

This work would not have been possible without my excellent co-authors Daniel Rosenfeld, Amelia Goranson, @janettphd.bsky.social, Paschal Sheeran, and @kurtjgray.bsky.social ! Full paper: doi.org/10.1177/0146...

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

doi.org

Classism, or discrimination based on social class, is linked to poor mental health – and perceived stress helps explain why. I’m excited to share this new paper with my colleagues: doi.org/10.3390/heal...

A huge congratulations to Dr. Jordan Parker on her PhD! I'm so proud to celebrate this remarkable scholar, who graduates with over 25 publications, NSF and Ford Foundation Fellowships, and more awards than can fit in the character limit! 🎓❤️⭐️

So proud of our lab manager, Katrina Smith, for receiving the Denise Apcar Award this commencement weekend!🎓This award honors exceptional undergraduate research, and it has been a joy to watch Katrina’s hard work and growth as a researcher. 🎉

Congratulations to former DiSH Summer Research Intensive student Citlalli Martinez-Blas on committing to UCLA as a Psychobiology major! 🎉 She discovered her passion for the field through my NSF-funded summer program and gained valuable research experience. Bruin bound! 💙💛

Congratulations to Katrina Smith, our current lab manager, on presenting her research at the Psi Chi Research Conference this past Friday and receiving the Faculty Choice Award for Poster Session #1!🏆 All of us in the DiSH Lab are proud of your hard work and this well-deserved recognition!

Congrats to alum Matthew Phillipi on his commitment to Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine! 🎉 As an RA, he gained hands-on experience in research, participant visits, data cleaning, and IRB approval. He credits the mentorship received in my lab as central to his journey.🩺

I’m excited to share my new research with collaborator and former DiSH Lab manager, Erin Standen, that reveals a surprising “GLP-1 paradox”: people using weight-loss medications may face greater stigma than those who don’t lose weight at all. Read more at tinyurl.com/riceglpparadox

I'm proud to celebrate DiSH Lab seniors Katrina Smith (our current lab manager) and Laura Wang for presenting their independent research projects at PURC 2026! 🎉 Katrina delivered a 5-minute data blitz and Laura shared her work in a poster session. Great job!!

Why do certain foods feel so comforting🍲? Cravings are deeply tied to memory and emotion🧠, and we may even be able to “retrain” what feels comforting toward healthier choices! I’m excited to be featured in this Knowable article exploring the science behind comfort food: tinyurl.com/knowablecomf...

Why we crave ‘comfort food’

Nostalgia plays a big role in the meals that bring us solace — which mean we might be able to recondition ourselves toward healthier foods that still soothe

tinyurl.com

DiSH Lab Summer Research Intensive alum Puma Buck (third from the left) is UCLA-bound as a Psychology major! 🥳The mentorship, lectures, and hands-on research experience from my NSF-funded two-week intensive inspired her to pursue a future PhD. Congrats, Puma!!

Isaac Membreño, DiSH Lab RA alum, will be pursuing a Counseling Psychology PhD at the University of Oregon this fall! His experience carrying out research experiments in my lab sparked a lasting motivation for health research and academia🙌 Great job, Isaac!

I'm proud to share that my mentee, Khoa-Nathan Ngo, received a prestigious NIH Undergraduate Scholarship! I also shared a few thoughts with the Daily Bruin on why NIH funding is so important for supporting undergraduate research and mentorship. dailybruin.com/2026/02/10/u...

UCLA psychology student receives prestigious NIH undergraduate scholarship - Daily Bruin

Khoa-Nathan Ngo is looking to pursue research, serve his community and make a national impact. Ngo, a fourth-year psychology student, won one of 10 National Institutes of Health undergraduate scholars...

dailybruin.com

Our newest paper, in JAMA Open - randomized high stress employees at UCSF to Headspace or control and Headspace worked to reduce stress! Useful: the effect seems to happen as long as you hit 5 mins per day. Great leadership from @aricprather.bsky.social jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Digital Meditation to Target Employee Stress

This randomized clinical trial investigates whether a digital mindfulness meditation application reduces perceptions of global and job-related stress among adults employed at a large academic medical ...

jamanetwork.com

Are you supposed to pronounce the analytic approach “Bay-zee-an” or “Bay-zhun” help

Some good news: California is banning insurance companies from abandoning people who just lost everything in LA. They issued a one-year moratorium on insurance cancellations in affected areas. fortune.com/2025/01/10/c...

California bans insurance cancellation in LA fire-affected areas

Insurers are set to face a bill that could top $20 billion.

fortune.com

Fit vs fat took a hit when it came out that its champion Steve Blair took Coke $ but glad to see we can trust the finding: BMI has no relation to mortality if you’re fit. Still kinda runs counter to me and @drhunger.bsky.social’s 2016 BMI =/= poor health paper but glad to see a BMI-busting paper.

Eric Topol@erictopol.bsky.social · 2y ago

Cardiorespiratory fitness overrides BMI for association with reduced all-cause and cardiovascular mortality, results from a systematic review of 20 studies bjsm.bmj.com/content/earl... www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/202...

In 2025 I’ll take the reins as president of the Society for Biopsychosocial Science and Medicine. I’m so proud to be the next of so many A+++ allstars that I admire to the ends of the earth. Here’s a piece we published on where we’ve come from and where we’re going as a Society tinyurl.com/SBSM2w

Towards a Second Social Movement in Biopsychosocial Science ... : Biopsychosocial Science and Medicine

An abstract is unavailable.

journals.lww.com

Interrupting regularly scheduled academia content to bring you a picture of the incredible cake from my pickleball-themed hatch day party, made by @cakecreationsbyme.bsky.social

I’ll be thinking about Wellness (my fave book in 2024) forever! Partly narcissistically bc it talks about real psychology studies (examples below), but also bc for the first time I concretely, vividly got how algorithms function to sew discord, and bc it TOTALLY gets parenthood lol nathanhill.net/

@aricprather.bsky.social’s book, The 7-Day Sleep Solution is also excellent. People come up to him in the street and hug him and stuff for changing their lives!

Ryan L. Brown@ryanlinnbrown.bsky.social · 2y ago

Happy Holidays from the Stress Puzzle!🎁🧩 Listen in for a conversation with @aricprather.bsky.social about stress, sleep, & social experiences at the holidays + links between those factors and our susceptibility to infections & severity of illness. Listen: www.stressmeasurement.org/podcast/epis...

@mwkraus.bsky.social is always the most thoughtful person in the room when it comes to this stuff!

Michael W. Kraus@mwkraus.bsky.social · 2y ago

I wrote a little reflection on objectivity and diversity in science. Could be useful if you are teaching research methods, as is the companion paper on objectivity interrogation. communities.springernature.com/posts/in-sci...

Just published in International Journal of Eating Disorders-super proud of Adwoah Yeboah, an undergrad in our lab! And DiSH grad student Jordan Parker who mentored her like an absolute pro. Take-home - positivity re: Blackness is protective against eating disorder risk dx.doi.org/10.1002/eat....

The Relationship Between Racial Attitudes and Disordered Eating Behaviors in Black Men and Black Women

Objective Black individuals remain underrepresented in disordered eating research, despite evidence that both Black men and women present with disordered eating behaviors. Culturally-informed theore...

dx.doi.org

A piece in @science.org about have babies in academia. I was so privileged at UCLA - colleagues that were thrilled for me when they heard; research-based daycare on campus and phone call whenever the baby was hungry so I could go breastfeed them. Every place, academic or not, should have this!

Science Magazine@science.org · 2y ago

"The academic structure … makes planning for a family feel like an impossible luxury." In this #ScienceWorkingLife, two postdocs share how, as women in academia, having children can feel impossible—and how talking about it makes them feel less alone. scim.ag/49BKZgp

TIL, from the incredible Jack Bobo (our new Director of Rothman Family Institute for Food Studies) that someone dies of starvation every 4 seconds. In 2024!!! But also that this is the lowest starvation rate in history. My takeaway: Urgency+hope is how to stay motivated.

Just got an update on the planning for the Olympic Athletes’ Village for LA 2028 (which will be here at UCLA) and the room came alive when continuation of the #chocolatemuffins was discussed

🏆Congratulations to @tenelewis.bsky.social & team for winning the Stress Network's Stress Science Paper Award in Human Empirical! I spoke with Dr. Lewis about links between stress faced by loved ones (e.g., family, friends) & cardiovascular health. Listen: www.stressmeasurement.org/podcast/epis...