Dana Rose Garfin, PhD
Dr. Garfin is Principal Investigator of the REACH Lab and is currently an Assistant 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. 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). She was also awarded an Early Stage Investigator Award from the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research.
Presently, Dr. Garfin is Principal Investigator of a National Institute of Health funded grant titled “Mindfulness-based Intervention to Address PTSD in Trauma-exposed, Homeless Women.” This project takes a biopsychosocial approach to understand the experience of trauma and community-based approaches to alleviate adverse traumatic stress symptoms and associated problems. Dr. Garfin is also co-Principal Investigator (with Drs. E. Alison Holman and Roxane Cohen Silver) of several National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded projects that explore the psychological implications of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ukraine war, and other existential threats using a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults, as well as an NSF-funded project (with Dr. Gabrielle Wong-Parodi) of a longitudinal study of repeated exposure to hurricanes and other climate-related threats.
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.
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.
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.