Shira Maguen, PhD
The International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS) has announced that UC San Francisco clinician-researcher Shira Maguen, PhD, has been selected to receive the group's 2025 Robert S. Laufer Memorial Award for Outstanding Scientific Achievement in recognition of her impactful work on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), moral injury, and suicide.
Maguen is a professor and the interim vice chair for the San Francisco VA Health Care System (SFVAHCS) in the UCSF Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, as well as the mental health director of the SFVAHCS Post-9/11 Integrated Care Clinic and a staff psychologist on the SFVAHCS PTSD Clinical Team. She is also the San Francisco site lead for the VA Women’s Practice Based Research Network and director of the SFVAHCS PTSD MIRECC Postdoctoral Research Fellowship.
Maguen has been a faculty member at UCSF since 2006. She received her doctorate in clinical psychology from Georgia State University and completed her internship and postdoctoral training at the National Center for PTSD at the VA Boston Health Care System.
She is deeply involved with the research, clinical, and training components of the SFVAHCS PTSD program. Her research interests fall under the umbrella of PTSD, moral injury, and suicide — including risk and resilience factors in veterans — with a particular focus on female veterans. Maguen has authored over 200 peer-reviewed publications and continues to lead groundbreaking work in veteran mental health, including notable studies which have focused on novel treatments for veterans who have killed in war, trauma-related eating problems in female veterans, the effectiveness of evidence-based treatments in Iraq and Afghanistan veterans via natural language processing, and the effectiveness of a behaviorally-based treatment for insomnia in primary care.
The Laufer Award was established in 1991 in memory of Robert S. Laufer, PhD, a sociologist who made early and important contributions to the field of traumatic stress and PTSD through his research on the effects of war experiences on Vietnam combat veterans. It is given annually to an individual or group who has made an outstanding and original scientific achievement that has significantly advanced knowledge in the field of traumatic stress.
Former faculty member also honored by ISTSS for clinical excellence
Kristine Burkman, PhD
Clinical psychologist Kristine Burkman, PhD, an associate clinical professor in the UCSF Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences from 2013 to 2024, was also recognized by ISTSS with the organization's 2025 Sarah Haley Memorial Award for Clinical Excellence.
During her time with UCSF, Burkman served as a front-line clinician and researcher at SFVAHCS, specializing in traumatic stress, substance use, and moral injury. She also trained dozens of interdisciplinary residents in providing psychotherapy for combat veterans and co-authored the textbook Group Approaches to Treating Traumatic Stress.
She now maintains a private practice dedicated to advancing therapeutic strategies for first responders, nonprofit leaders, and healthcare providers, and consults with governmental, academic, nonprofit, and healthcare organizations supporting personnel regularly exposed to trauma, human suffering, and life-threatening conditions.
Both Maguen and Burkman will receive their awards during the ISTSS Annual Meeting in Baltimore this September.
About UCSF Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
The UCSF Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and the Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute are among the nation's foremost resources in the fields of child, adolescent, adult, and geriatric mental health. Together they constitute one of the largest departments in the UCSF School of Medicine and the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences, with a focus on providing unparalleled patient care, conducting impactful research, training the next generation of behavioral health leaders, and advancing diversity, health equity, and community across the field.
UCSF Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences conducts its clinical, educational, and research efforts at a variety of locations in Northern California, including the UCSF Nancy Friend Pritzker Psychiatry Building; UCSF Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital; UCSF Health medical centers and community hospitals across San Francisco; UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals in San Francisco and Oakland; Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center; the San Francisco VA Health Care System; UCSF Fresno; and numerous community-based sites around the San Francisco Bay Area.
About the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences
The UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences, established by the extraordinary generosity of Joan and Sanford I. "Sandy" Weill, brings together world-class researchers with top-ranked physicians to solve some of the most complex challenges in the human brain.
The UCSF Weill Institute leverages UCSF’s unrivaled bench-to-bedside excellence in the neurosciences. It unites three UCSF departments—Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Neurology, and Neurological Surgery—that are highly esteemed for both patient care and research, as well as the Neuroscience Graduate Program, a cross-disciplinary alliance of nearly 100 UCSF faculty members from 15 basic-science departments, as well as the UCSF Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases, a multidisciplinary research center focused on finding effective treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, frontotemporal dementia, Parkinson’s disease, and other neurodegenerative disorders.
About UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is exclusively focused on the health sciences and is dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. UCSF Health, which serves as UCSF’s primary academic medical center, includes top-ranked specialty hospitals and other clinical programs, and has affiliations throughout the Bay Area.
