Hyong Jin Cho, M.D., Ph.D.

hjcho@mednet.ucla.edu

Dr. Cho is a postdoctoral scholar at the UCLA Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology. He is currently investigating the following topics: 1) inflammatory markers, cortisol and fatigue; 2) rheumatoid arthritis and sleep; and 3) sleep, depression and health functioning in older adults.

J. David Creswell, Ph.D.

creswell@ucla.edu

David’s work focuses broadly on the effects of stress on health and disease, and in identifying ways of reducing stress in various patient populations. He is currently working on projects which examine how self-affirmation and mindfulness meditation can buffer stress, with a focus on understanding the underlying psychological, neural, and physiological mechanisms of these effects. His postdoctoral work at the Cousins Center consists of testing the effects of a mindfulness meditation intervention in healthy older adults, using neuroimaging and inflammatory measures. David received his PhD in social psychology from UCLA in 2007 and will be starting as an assistant professor in psychology at Carnegie Mellon University in Fall 2008.

Erica Sloan, Ph.D.

esloan@ucla.edu

Erica Sloan completed a Bachelor of Science (Hons) at the Australian National University, where she was awarded the University Medal in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Her PhD, at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Center in Melbourne, Australia, focused on mechanisms of breast cancer metastasis and helped to identify genes involved in the spread of cancer. More recently, Erica’s work at UCLA School of Medicine has investigated how stress modulates neural wiring in peripheral lymphoid organs and has explored the implications of dynamic neural-immune interactions on progression of HIV infection.

Kamala Thomas, Ph.D.

kthomas@mednet.ucla.edu

KaMala Thomas completed her doctorate in clinical psychology at the joint doctoral program at UC San Diego and San Diego State University, where her research focused on understanding the psychosocial correlates of hypertension and sympathetic nervous system activation in African Americans and Caucasian Americans.  For her dissertation, she examined whether neighborhood and individual measures of social class mediate ethnic differences in blood pressure responses to phenylephrine.  She joined the Cousins Center after completing a psychology internship at UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute.  While at the Cousins Center, she is conducting a prospective investigation of depression, neuroendocrine activity, sleep, and inflammation in wives of men who are being treated for prostate cancer.