Dana Rose Garfin, PhD

Dr. Garfin is Principal Investigator of the REACH Lab and is currently an Associate Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles in the Fielding School of Public Health in the Department of Community Health Sciences. Her work explores how individuals respond and adapt to traumatic events, broadly defined.  Specifically, she studies affective, cognitive, and behavioral responses to collective trauma, with an emphasis on climate change and related threats. Dr. Garfin also explores how to leverage community-based interventions to reduce adversity-related mental health disparities. In 2021, Dr. Garfin received the Outstanding Contribution to Trauma Psychology by an Early Career Psychologist Award from American Psychological Association (Division 56) and the Emerging Leadership Award from American Public Health Association, ICTHP (Integrative, Complementary, and Alternative Health Practices). In 2023, she was awarded an Early Stage Investigator Award from the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research. ​

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Dr. Garfin is co-Lead Investigator of the Silver Stress and Coping Lab with Drs.  E. Alison Holman and Roxane Cohen Silver.  See the  Silver Stress and Coping Lab Website for more information about these projects.

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Dr. Garfin is an avid practitioner of yoga, meditation, Pilates, and other mind-body practices. She has completed teacher training in Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction at the UCSD Center for Mindfulness. You can also find her on the teaching schedule at Pilates Plus OC.

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Prior to her graduate training, she traveled extensively in the South Pacific, Asia, India, and Central and South America. Highlights of her travels include surfing the longest left-hand break in the world (Chicama, Peru); eating the world’s most amazing rice, curry, and fresh yogurt (after surfing perfect point breaks) in Arugam Bay, Sri Lanka; meditating at the Tushita Meditation Center in  Dharamsala;  studying yoga in Rishikesh; and working with Tibetan refugees in Northern India.