Roxane Cohen Silver, PhD

Roxane Cohen Silver, PhD, is a Professor in the Department of Psychology and Social Behavior and the Department of Medicine at the University of California/Irvine. A national expert in the field of stress and coping, Dr. Silver is a Fellow of both the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Society. In December 2003, Professor Silver was appointed by U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge to the nine-member Academe and Policy Research Senior Advisory Committee of the Homeland Security Advisory Council. Professor Silver also serves as Director of Graduate Affairs for the Department of Psychology and Social Behavior, the coordinator of its doctoral program in Health Psychology, and the Co-Director of her department's NIMH Institutional Training Grant in Social and Environmental Contexts of Adaptation. For the past 25 years, Dr. Silver has studied the acute and long-term psychosocial reactions to physical disability, death of a spouse or child, childhood sexual victimization, divorce, family violence, war, natural disaster, and human-caused disasters, such as the Columbine High School shootings and the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. She has also examined physical and psychological responses to traumatic events among refugees and immigrant populations. Dr. Silver is currently principal investigator of the only ongoing national longitudinal study of psychological responses to the September 11th attacks; the first report of this study appeared in JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association in September 2002. In recognition of her efforts toward graduate and undergraduate education at UC/Irvine, she has received a number of teaching awards.