Expert Profile

Biography

Roxane Cohen Silver, Ph.D., is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Psychological Science, the Department of Medicine, and the Program in Public Health, and Associate Director of the ADVANCE Program for Faculty and Graduate Student Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in the Office of Inclusive Excellence at the University of California, Irvine, where she has been actively involved in research, teaching, and administration since 1989. An international expert in the field of stress and coping, Silver has spent almost four decades studying acute and long-term psychological and physical reactions to stressful life experiences, including personal traumas such as loss, physical disability, and childhood sexual victimization, as well as larger collective events such as terror attacks, war, and natural disasters across the world (e.g., U.S., Indonesia, Chile, Israel). Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Mental Health, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Public Health Service. She has guided governments in the U.S. and abroad in the aftermath of terrorist attacks and earthquakes and served on numerous senior advisory committees and task forces for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, providing advice to the Department and its component agencies on the psychological impact of disasters and terrorism. She has also testified at the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Science and given several briefings to policymakers at the White House and on Capitol Hill on the role of social science research in disaster preparedness and response and the impact of the media following disasters. Silver is the President of the Federation of Associations in Behavioral & Brain Sciences (FABBS) and was the 2016 President of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology. She was also a founding Director and Chair of the Board of Directors of Psychology Beyond Borders, an international nonprofit organization that facilitated research, intervention, and policy development in the prevention, preparedness, and response to terror attacks, conflict, or natural disasters across the world.

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