By Nicholas Roznovsky
UC San Francisco assistant adjunct professor Aoife O'Donovan, PhD, has been recognized by the American Psychosomatic Society (APS) with its 2019 Herbert E. Weiner Early Career Award. She received the honor last weekend during the society's 77th annual scientific meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia, where she also delivered her award lecture, "An Inflammatory Story: How Traumatic Stress Causes Ill Health."
APS established the Herbert Weiner Early Career Award to identify individuals who have contributed significantly during the early stages of their career to the field of psychosomatic medicine and show substantial promise of continued meritorious academic accomplishments in the discipline. As part of her award, O'Donovan presented a lecture titled. Previous recipients include UCSF faculty members Mary Whooley, MD, and Aric Prather, PhD.
O'Donovan's research is focused on uncovering the mechanisms by which psychological experiences influence the development of age-related diseases, with a particular interest in how psychosocial stress influences the biological aging process. She is the principal investigator for the UCSF Trauma and Health Research on Immunity, Vitality and Emotions (THIRVE) Laboratory based at the San Francisco VA Medical Center. In 2017, she was named a UCSF Hellman Fellow and recently received the International Society of Traumatic Stress Studies' 2018 Chaim and Bela Danieli Young Professional Award.
About UCSF Psychiatry
The UCSF Department of Psychiatry, UCSF Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital, 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 mission focused on research (basic, translational, clinical), teaching, patient care, and public service.
UCSF Psychiatry conducts its clinical, educational and research efforts at a variety of locations in Northern California, including UCSF campuses at Parnassus Heights, Mission Bay and Laurel Heights, UCSF Medical Center, UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, the San Francisco VA Health Care System, and UCSF Fresno.
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—Neurology, Psychiatry, 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
UC San Francisco (UCSF) is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. It includes top-ranked graduate schools of dentistry, medicine, nursing and pharmacy; a graduate division with nationally renowned programs in basic, biomedical, translational and population sciences; and a preeminent biomedical research enterprise.
It also includes UCSF Health, which comprises three top-ranked hospitals – UCSF Medical Center and UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals in San Francisco and Oakland – as well as Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital, UCSF Benioff Children’s Physicians, and the UCSF Faculty Practice. UCSF Health has affiliations with hospitals and health organizations throughout the Bay Area. UCSF faculty also provide all physician care at the public Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, and the San Francisco VA Medical Center. The UCSF Fresno Medical Education Program is a major branch of the University of California, San Francisco’s School of Medicine.
