Elissa Epel, PhD

Elissa Epel, Ph.D, is the Sarlo-Ekman Chair of Human Emotions and Professor in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, at University of California, San Francisco. She is the Director of the UCSF Aging, Metabolism, and Emotions Center (www.amecenter.ucsf.edu), the Health Psychology Program, and UC Wide Climate Mental Health Initiative, Associate Director of the Center for Health and Community and the NIDDK UCSF NORC, and member of the National Academy of Medicine and AAAS. She is the past Vice Chair of Psychology, President of the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research and Co-Chair of the Mind and Life Institute Steering Council.

Elissa focuses on the malleable determinants of healthy longevity, optimal metabolism, and mental health, both lifecourse predictors and interventions to slow aging. She studies the psychological, social, and behavioral processes related to chronic psychological stress and health, and how to apply this basic science to scalable interventions. She studies processes that accelerate biological aging, with a focus on toxic stress, overeating and effects on metabolism, and cellular aging (including the telomere/telomerase maintenance system). She and her colleagues develop and test interventions that combine behavioral, psychological, and mindfulness training to improve stress resilience, to slow aging. She co-leads a national Stress Network, integrating Emotional Well Being, and has served as an expert for National Institute Health initiatives on Geroscience and the Science of Behavior Change.

Epel also focuses on teaching contemplative social resilience skills to students, the general public, and activists for ecological sustainability and for democracy. With a team of UC professors and ecologically trained mindfulness instructors, they are teaching an academic and experiential skills based class on all 10 UC campuses for credit (www.climateresilience.online).

Epel studied psychology and psychobiology at Stanford University, and clinical and health psychology at Yale University. She completed a clinical internship at the Palo Alto Veterans Healthcare System and an NIMH postdoctoral fellowship at UCSF. Epel has received several awards including the APA Early Career Award, Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research Neal Miller Young Investigator Award, Mind and Life Service Award, the 2017 Silver Innovator Award from the Alliance for Aging Research, and the Patricia Barchas Award for Sociophysiology research from APS/SBMS. She has been named a highly cited researcher since 2019, in the top 1% globally.

Epel co-wrote with Nobel Laureate Elizabeth Blackburn, The Telomere Effect, a NYT bestseller under Science, which is translated in 30 languages. She also wrote The Stress Prescription, a practical book on science based fundamental practices to reduce stress and increase well being (in 17 languages).

Her work has been featured in venues such as TEDMED, NBC’s Today Show, CBS’s Morning Show, 60 minutes, National Public Radio, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Wisdom 2.0, Health 2.0, and in many science documentaries. Epel enjoys leading retreats and sharing practical science-based information to the public. She led the creation of expert written web-based resources and short videos for pandemics and other crises, including psychological first aid and mental health issues and co-leads creation and dissemination of climate resilience resources for students and the public.