TCU’s Studies in Integrative Health Sciences, which will present an annual lecture, will present Elissa Epel, Ph.D., associate professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, at 6:30 p.m. April 12 in the Brown-Lupton University Union Auditorium on the TCU campus. The lecture is titled “Stress, Inflammation, Cancer and Chronic Disease. What's the Connection?” Faculty, staff and students are admitted free, but registration is required; general admission tickets are $15. Registration for all is available online at (https://wwwb.is.tcu.edu/upay2/harris_college_event2/). The lecture is open to the public.

 

Epel will also present a lecture for students titled "Survive & Thrive! Making Stress Work for You" at noon in the BLUU Auditorium.

 

Epel is a health psychology researcher who investigates the depths and intricacies of the mind-body connection. In particular, she has studied how processes related to psychological stress and meditation-based interventions affect cellular-based measures of aging. Epel also has studied mechanisms of how stress affects eating behavior and metabolism. She has been particularly interested in the automaticity of eating, and how intertwined eating is with our emotional life, and how it can become compulsive.

Epel earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology from Stanford University and her doctorate in health psychology from Yale University. Her research publications may be found at www.chc.ucsf.edu/ame%5Flab/.

 

Key sponsors include Susan G. Komen for the Cure Lectures in Mindfulness and Integrative Medicine; Baylor All Saints Medical Center, Fort Worth; the Center for Cancer & Blood Disorders; mindful; Scientific American; and the Society for Integrative Oncology.