William Gerin received his BA in Psychology from Stanislaus State College in Turlock, California in 1979, where he studied operant and classical conditioning avoidance models in animals. He became interested in the role of human interactions in emotional regulation, and received his PhD in Social Psychology from Columbia University in 1984, under the mentorship of Stanley Schachter. In 1985 Gerin undertook an NIH-sponsored postdoctoral fellowship in Cardiovascular Epidemiology at the Cornell University Medical Center. He then went on to Mount Sinal Hospital and (back to) Columbia University, when he moved his laboratory to the Pennsylvania State University, in the Department of Biobehavioral Health, where he is a Professor, and the Director of the Experimental Cardiovascular Psychophysiology Laboratory. His current research areas include the examination of acute biological responses, including blood pressure, heart rate variability, cortisol, endothelial function, and inflammatory markers, to stress and negative emotionality. His other areas of study include the role of emotional regulation in the development of hypertension and coronary heart disease, non-pharmacological interventions to lower blood pressure and improve medication adherence in culturally diverse patient populations, health disparities in the treatment and outcomes of hypertension, and the role of psyochosocial factors in cardiovascular disease.
Christine H. Kapelewski Kinkade earned her BS in Neuroscience and Physiology at the University of Maryland, College Park in 2006 and her Ph.D. in Neuroscience at the Pennsylvania State University in 2011. After graduating, she went to work at the University of California, Berkeley for two years as a Research Compliance Analyst. Chrissy is now at the University of California, Davis where she is a Clinical Trials Analyst for the Veterinary Center for Clinical Trials.
Niki Page is the Director of Grants and Contracts for the College of Health and Human Development. Niki has worked as a research administrator at the Pennsylvania State University since 2001. She has performed a variety of roles, to include project management over a large DOE Research Center; to being the first Pre-Award Director of Penn State′s Strategic Interdisciplinary Research Office. She has shepherded more than 4,000 sponsored research applications and enjoys partnering with faculty teams to help them navigate the ever change world of extramural funding. Prior to joining Penn State, Niki proudly served in the U.S. Air Force.
