PI Karen Weihs is Board Certified in Family Medicine and Psychiatry. Dr. Weihs launched her research career at the Center for Family Research at the George Washington University. She was federally funded to study families and illness, as well as teaching brief psychotherapy for psychiatry residents, providing psychiatric care for cancer patients and directing the Clinical Psychiatric Research Center for the conduct of clinical trials of pharmacologic interventions for anxiety and depressive disorders. Dr. Weihs' current research aims to improve knowledge of how to prevent depression in patients with cancer and their family members, as well as to effectively treat stress and depression when they occur in cancer patients. Dr. Weihs has been continuously funded for 20 years to conduct research on biobehavioral oncology, in close collaboration with oncologists at the George Washington University, Georgetown University and the University of Arizona.  She has conducted three prospective longitudinal studies to determine the impact of emotional and interpersonal processes on medical, psychiatric, functional and quality of life outcomes. Her research is informed by clinical experience providing preventive interventions and clinical psychosocial services to cancer patients and their family members. Dr. Weihs' has been a Research Member of the University of Arizona Cancer Center, and the Medical Director for Psycho Social Oncology since 2006. She currently co-leads the Mechanisms of Emotion, Social Relationships and Health Developing Research Program within the University of Arizona, Clinical and Translational Research Institute. In these capacities, Dr. Weihs collaborates with intervention scientists to test innovative approaches to psychosocial interventions for breast cancer patients.

co-I Joshua Wiley is a lecturer in the Monash Institute for Cognitive and Clinical Neurosciences and School of Psychological Sciences at Monash University doing research in behavioural medicine. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of California at Los Angeles in Psychology with a major in health psychology research and did a post-doc in primary care and prevention research. Dr. Wiley studies the roles of risk and protective factors in the psychological and biological response to stress and cancer.  Specifically, he is interested in affective science and understanding the protective role of emotion regulation factors including psychosocial resources (e.g., optimism, social support) and approach and avoidance-oriented coping processes. He studies whether and how these factors promote adjustment and health to stressful experiences including cancer diagnosis and treatment, low socioeconomic status, and general life stress. To understand how psychosocial factors, lead to better health, he examines behavioral (e.g., sleep) and physiological mechanisms (e.g., cortisol, inflammation).

co-I Miri Cohen is the Head of the School of Social Work, Faculty of Social Welfare & Health Sciences, University of Haifa. Received BSW in Social Work from Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel in 1973 and MSW from the University of Haifa in 1986. She received her PhD in 2000 from the Faculty of Medicine, the Technion, Israel, in the area of psycho-neuro-immunology. Between the years 2006-2012, she served as the Head of the Gerontology Department. She is the President of the Israel Psycho-Oncology Society, a board member of the Israeli Oncology Council, a board member of the Journals Psycho-Oncology and The Journal of Research in Social Work Practice and a former Associate Editor of Quality of Life Research. Miri Cohen was awarded various grants, including The Israel Science Foundation, Israel Cancer Association, Müllerska Foundation, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and NIH. Her main areas of research are gerontology, Psycho-Neuro-Immunology (PNI), psycho-oncology, stress and coping, and multicultural aspects of psycho-social and health care using advanced research methodologies. She published more than hundred papers in refereed journals and several books and chapters in edited books. Many of her papers have been published in leading journals such as Cancer, Breast Cancer Research and Therapy, International Journal of Cancer, Psycho-Oncology, Journal of the Geriatric American Association, Gerontologist.

co-I Faisal Azaiza is the Dean of the Faculty for Social Welfare & Health Sciences at the University of Haifa. He previously served as the Head of the School of Social Work at the University of Haifa for five years and has published in the areas of welfare and health of minority populations, promoting adherence to early detection of breast cancer screening, and cultural transformation of ethnic minorities.

co-I John JB Allen received his bachelor's degree at the University of Wisconsin Madison under the direction of mentors Loren and Jean Chapman, and completed graduate training at the University of Minnesota under the direction of mentor William G. Iacono. Following an internship at the VA medical center in Minneapolis, he joined the faculty of the Department of Psychology at The University of Arizona in 1992, where he is currently Distinguished Professor of Psychology, with appointments in the Graduate Interdisciplinary Programs in Cognitive Science, and in Neuroscience. Prof. Allen’s research spans several areas, but the main focus is the etiology and treatment of mood and anxiety disorders. I am interested in identifying risk factors for depression using electroencephalographic and autonomic psychophysiological measures, especially EEG asymmetry, resting state fMRI connectivity, and cardiac vagal control.  Based on these findings, I wish to develop novel and neurally-informed treatments for mood and anxiety disorders, including Transcranial Ultrasound, EEG biofeedback, and Transcranial Direct Current and Transcranial Alternating Current. Other work includes understanding how emotion and emotional disorders influence the way we make decisions and monitor our actions. Additionally, Prof. Allen has published on the assessment of memory and amnesia using event-related potentials, including the assessment of deception ("lie" detection and the polygraph) as well as malingering, and the assessment of the veridicality and the nature of amnesia in dissociative disorders.