Simon L. Bacon is a professor in the Department of Health, Kinesiology & Applied Physiology at Concordia University. His research deals with the impact of health behaviors and lifestyle (e.g., physical activity, diet, weight management, and stress) on chronic diseases (e.g., obesity, cardiovascular disease, and chronic lung disease). He utilizes multiple methodologies including epidemiological/psychophysiological/ systematic review and behavioral trials designs. Currently, Dr. Bacon is the CIHR SPOR Mentoring Chair in Innovative, Patient-Oriented, Behavioural Clinical Trials and a fellow of the Obesity Society, the Canadian Cardiovascular Society, and the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research. Dr. Bacon is also co-director of the Montreal Behavioural Medicine Centre, a researcher at the Centre intégré universitaire de santé et de services sociaux du Nord-de-l'Île-de-Montréal, and co-leader of the International Behavioural Trials Network.

Gary G. Bennett is the Bishop-MacDermott Family Professor of Psychology & Neuroscience, Global Health and Medicine and vice provost for Undergraduate Education at Duke University. He is also the founding director of the Duke Digital Health Science Center and past president of the Society of Behavioral Medicine. Dr. Bennett’s research program designs, tests, and disseminates digital obesity treatments. He is especially interested in integrating digital health treatments into the primary care setting—particularly those that serve medically vulnerable patients. Dr. Bennett has authored more than 150 scientific papers, and his research (which has been continuously supported by the National Institutes of Health) has been featured in The New York Times, NPR, Time, CBS, ABC, NBC, Fox News, and many other media outlets. Dr. Bennett has served on numerous National Institutes of Health panels, editorial boards, and guidelines committees, and he advises several health care and health technology organizations.

Elizabeth Brondolo is a professor of psychology at St. John’s University in New York as well as a practicing psychologist. She is also chair of the American Psychological Association’s Working Group on Stress and Health Disparities. Dr. Brondolo is a nationally recognized researcher in stress and health and specializes in the treatment of bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and obsessive compulsive disorder. Her work has focused on researching how racism and ethnic discrimination can affect people’s health, including their risk for heart disease. She has developed a community-based research program with Jamaica Hospital Medical Center and Flushing Hospital Medical Center in which her students share knowledge of research methods and behavioral science with the family medicine residents to improve patients’ quality of care. She is co-author of Break the Bipolar Cycle: A Day-to-Day Guide to Living with Bipolar Disorder and author of Psychology Research Methods: A Writing Intensive Approach.

Susan M. Czajkowski is chief of the Health Behaviors Research Branch, Behavioral Research Program, Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, National Cancer Institute. She is an expert on psychosocial and behavioral risk factors for disease, including the development and testing of interventions for behavioral risk factors such as obesity, physical inactivity, adverse diets, and non-adherence to medical regimens. Other interests include research on the roles of social support and depression in disease risk and recovery and the assessment of health-related quality of life and psychosocial functioning in patients with chronic diseases. Prior to joining the National Cancer Institute, Dr. Czajkowski was a program director at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and project officer for the Enhancing Recovery in Coronary Heart Disease (ENRICHD) Patients Study. Dr. Czajkowski is a fellow in the Society of Behavioral Medicine and recently served as president of the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research.

Karina W. Davidson is senior vice president of research, dean of academic affairs, and head of the Center for Personalized Health, which focuses on personalized or N-of-1 trial health research at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research at Northwell Health. She is also a professor of behavioral medicine at the Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra University/Northwell Health. Dr. Davidson’s research focuses on innovations in personalized trials to manage chronic disease and patient symptoms that incorporate patient preferences and values. She has conducted randomized controlled trials on depression screening and treatments for healthy, hypertensive, and cardiac patients; identified crucial psychosocial risk factors for incident and recurrent cardiac events and mortality; and explored the physiological and behavioral mechanisms by which said risks are conferred. Dr. Davidson has also authored more than 250 peer-reviewed articles and numerous editorials and book chapters.

Elissa Epel is a professor and vice-chair in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. She studies how chronic stress can impact biological aging (including the telomere/telomerase system), and how behavioral, psychosocial, and environmental interventions may buffer stress effects and promote better nutrition, psychological resilience, and physiological resilience. She co-leads the National Institutes of Health Stress Network and, for ten years, led the UC obesity research consortium. She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, co-chair of the Mind and Life Institute steering council, and president of the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research. With Nobel Laureate Elizabeth Blackburn, she has also co-written The Telomere Effect: A Revolutionary Approach to Living Younger, Healthier, Longer, a New York Times bestseller.

Tracey A. Revenson is professor of psychology at Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY) and director of research training for health psychology and clinical science at the CUNY Graduate Center. Dr. Revenson brings a social-ecological perspective to the study of how stress and coping processes affect psychological adjustment to chronic physical illness and how these processes are influenced by social context, gender, and race/ethnicity. In addition to numerous articles and chapters, Dr. Revenson is the co-author or co-editor of 13 books, including Becoming a Health Psychologist, Handbook of Health Psychology, Cambridge Handbook of Psychology, Health & Medicine, Caregiving in the Illness Context, and Couples Coping with Stress. Dr. Revenson is the editor-in-chief of the Annals of Behavioral Medicine and serves on the editorial board of Health Psychology. She is a past president of the Society for Health Psychology of the American Psychological Association.

John M. Ruiz is an associate professor in the Clinical Psychology Program and director of the Health Psychology Track at the University of Arizona. He also serves as the current chair of diversity efforts within the Department of Psychology. Dr. Ruiz’s work examines how our social lives influence our physical health. Within this broad area, his particular focus on two key issues: (1) the connection between personality, relationships, and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk and the underlying biobehavioral mechanisms; and (2) racial/ethnic health disparities, particularly the epidemiological phenomenon referred to as the Hispanic Mortality Paradox. Dr. Ruiz serves on the editorial boards of several journals (Journal of Latinx Psychology, Health Psychology, Annals of Behavioral Medicine, Journal of Behavioral Medicine), the American Psychosomatic Society, and American Psychological Association’s Division 38 (Health Psychology); is the chair-elect for American Psychological Association’s Committee on Socioeconomic Status (CSES); and is a permanent member of the National Institutes of Health’s Behavioral Medicine Interventions and Outcomes (BMIO) study section.