About the Study

Elissa Epel, Ph.D, is an international expert on stress, well-being, and optimal aging and a best-selling author. She is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, at the University of California, San Francisco, where she is Vice Chair of Psychology and directs the Aging, Metabolism, Emotions Center.  She studies the environmental, psychological, behavioral, and social factors that impact cellular aging (such as telomeres, inflammation, and mitochondria), and is also focusing on climate wellness.

Barbara Laraia, PhD, MPH, RD is a Professor of Community Health Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research focuses on the influence of contextual level effects on dietary intake, cardiometabolic risk factors and pregnancy outcomes, especially among vulnerable populations.

Elissa Hamlat, PhD is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco.. Her work has documented the pubertal transition as a period of risk and the biological mechanisms by which early life adversity increases risk for accelerated development and aging. She is interested in how the intersection of gender and ethnicity may play a role in these relations. 

Aaron Eisen, PhD is a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. His research centers on improving our understanding of neurobiological pathways linking early life stress to health outcomes decades later. In doing so, Aaron seeks to disentangle whether early life stress might be better understood as not merely increasing susceptibility to stress, but as cultivating a broader form of environmental sensitivity, enhancing responsivity to both stressors and health-protective exposures.

Lucy Kho, BS, CCRP is Clinical Research Coordinator for the NGHS study and Associate Director of the UCSF AME Center. She graduated with a B.S. in Human Biology and Society from UCLA. Lucy is interested in how we can better understand how stress throughout the life course may contribute to the development of chronic disease in order to develop targeted interventions. Other research interests include women’s health and integrative medicine. She hopes to pursue a graduate degree in clinical psychology or public health in the future. 

Elena Fromer, MSW, is a Senior Clinical Research Coordinator (CRC) and Executive Director of the UCSF AME Center. She earned her Master of Social Work from the University of Michigan, where she concentrated in Interpersonal Practice with a focus on equity-centered and community-based care. Elena brings her clinical social work training to her research role, grounding her work in ethical practice and participant-centered engagement. She is committed to advancing research that promotes health equity and improves patient outcomes, with a particular interest in the impacts of climate change on health and the intersections of clinical care, community resilience, and social justice.

Isabella Fornell, MSc, is an Associate Specialist in the Department of Psychiatry at UCSF, where she supports research on stress, recovery, and health behavior. Her work includes developing mindfulness-based interventions for stress-related eating and advancing programs that promote health recovery for hospitalized children with social needs. With a background in clinical psychology and neuroscience, she brings a multicultural perspective shaped by counseling experience in South America and Europe. Her core focus is project management and scientific dissemination through protocol development and writing. She is currently expanding her training in methods that examine the physiological pathways of stress.

Advaita Dubey, BS is a Research Assistant at the UCSF Aging, Metabolism, and Emotions (AME) Center. She earned her B.S. in Neurobiology from the University of California, San Diego in 2024. Her work and research interests focus on the psychology of stress, resilience, and well-being, particularly through the lenses of mindfulness, nondual awareness, and self-related processes. She will soon begin a graduate degree in Social Work to further explore her interests in counseling psychology and social justice oriented mental health care.

Pei Qi Tea, BS is a Research Assistant at the UCSF Aging, Metabolism, and Emotions (AME) Center. She earned her BS in Computational Sciences from Minerva University in 2025. Having navigated healthcare systems in five countries, Pei Qi brings a global perspective to her work and is interested in applying biopsychosocial frameworks to better understand the factors shaping health and well-being across the lifespan. She plans to pursue graduate training in neuroscience or psychology with a focus on menstrual health.