George Slavich

Biography
Dr. George Slavich is a seasoned leader in science and integrative health care with 29 years of experience working in major academic medical centers. He is a leading authority in the conceptualization, assessment, and management of life stress; in psychological and biological mechanisms linking stress with mental and physical health; and in systems and policies for reducing population-level health disparities and achieving greater health equity by addressing stress-related factors at the individual and collective level. As the 9th most-cited researcher in the field of psychoneuroimmunology and the most-cited researcher in social genomics, Dr. Slavich developed the first online system for assessing lifetime stressor exposure; formulated the first fully integrated, multi-level theory of depression; and is helping pioneer a new field of research called human social genomics, which is revealing how social experiences reach deep inside the body to affect the human genome and health. His recent research focuses on Social Safety Theory, which describes how individual- and community-level experiences of social safety and threat influence the brain and immune system to affect human health, wellbeing, aging, and behavior across the lifespan. This translational work on the psychoneuroimmunology of stress, health, and resilience has been published in many leading journals including Nature Medicine, Nature Communications, Nature Mental Health, JAMA Psychiatry, JAMA Health Forum, Molecular Psychiatry, PNAS, Psychological Bulletin, and the Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, among others. In addition to these research efforts, Dr. Slavich is deeply devoted to teaching and mentoring, and to helping develop the next generation of leaders in psychiatry, population health, psychology, and medicine. He has mentored more than 185 pre- and post-doctoral trainees, and over the past three years, each has won the highly coveted UCLA Chancellor’s Award for Postdoctoral Research out of the more than 1,400 post-doctoral fellows at UCLA (Daniel Moriarity, 2023; Summer Mengelkoch, 2024; Jenna Alley, 2025). Early in his career, Dr. Slavich founded the Stanford Undergraduate Psychology Conference, Western Psychological Association Student Council, and Society of Clinical Psychology’s Section on Graduate Students and Early Career Psychologists. More recently, he has developed a new approach to classroom instruction called transformational teaching and has written numerous articles on professional development issues in science. He has received 18 awards for these contributions since 2009, including the Neal E. Miller New Investigator Award from the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research, Herbert Weiner Early Career Award from the American Psychosomatic Society, Susan Nolen-Hoeksema Early Career Research Award from the Society for a Science of Clinical Psychology, and Raymond D. Fowler Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Professional Development of Graduate Students from the American Psychological Association. Dr. Slavich was selected as a Beck Institute Scholar, at the Beck Institute for Cognitive Therapy and Research, from 2008-2009, and was a prestigious Society in Science Branco Weiss Fellow from 2008-2013.