Harvard Catalyst Profiles

Dr. Laura Kubzansky is Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences and Director of the Society and Health Laboratory at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She also serves as co-Director of the JPB Environmental Health Fellowship Program and is a sitting faculty member at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. Dr. Kubzansky received her Ph.D. (social psychology) from the University of Michigan, and completed a two year postdoctoral fellowship in social epidemiology as well as obtained her M.P.H. at the Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Kubzansky has published extensively on the role of psychological and social factors in health, with a particular focus on the effects of stress and emotion on heart disease. She also conducts research on whether stress, emotion and other psychological factors help to explain the relationship between social status and health. Other research projects and interests include a) studying the biological mechanisms linking emotions, social relationships, and health; b) relationships between early childhood environments, resilience, and healthy aging, and; c) how interactions between psychosocial stress and environmental exposures (e.g., lead, air pollution) may influence health.

Dr. Kubzansky has advised numerous masters, doctoral and postdoctoral students as a mentor, academic advisor and dissertation committee member. She is a Fellow in the American Psychological Association, and the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research. She has served as Senior Advisor to the Robert Wood Johnson funded Positive Health Research program, as a member of the Healthy People 2020 Health-Related Quality of Life and Well-Being Workgroup, and of the American Heart Association, Science of Well-Being Expert Panel. She is PI or co-investigator on a wide variety of grants funded through the Veterans Administration, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, EPA, NIH and others.