Discipline(s):
Psychoneuroimmunology, Health Psychology, Clinical Psychology, Behavioral Medicine
Area(s) of Expertise:
Inflammation, Sleep, Stress, Neuroendocrine and Autonomic Regulation, Stress Reactivity, Infectious Illness
E-Mail:
PratherA@chc.ucsf.edu
Background:
Aric A. Prather is an incoming Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholar at the University of California, San Francisco and Berkeley sites. He received his Ph.D. in Clinical and Biological & Health Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh in August 2010 following completion of his Clinical Psychology Pre-doctoral Internship at Duke University Medical Center. Trained in the field of psychoneuroimmunology (PNI), Aric’s research focuses on psychological, behavioral, and physiologic correlates of immune function, with particular emphasis on restorative processes (e.g. sleep) that may buffer the deleterious effects of stress on health. His dissertation examined whether natural variation in sleep parameters (e.g. sleep duration, efficiency, subjective quality) is associated with the magnitude of primary and secondary antibody responses to the hepatitis B vaccination series. As a Health and Society Scholar, Aric hopes to move beyond the laboratory setting by exploring how larger social pressures (e.g. childhood SES) shape biology across the life span to influence disease susceptibility in adulthood. Aric received a Master of Science in Psychology from the University of Pittsburgh in 2006 and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of California, Berkeley in 2001.
Journal Articles:
Click here for a list of Aric A. Prather's available publications in PubMed.
