Melissa is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and holds the Distinguished Chair in Contemplative Neuroscience at the Center for Healthy Minds. She earned a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2008 and a Bachelor’s of Science degree, also from UW–Madison, in 1997. Since that time she has worked to develop a mechanistic understanding of how the contents of the mind influence physiological processes in the body and how the activities of the immune system shape how we experience the world. Melissa has amassed multi-disciplinary expertise at the intersections of psychology, neuroscience, immunology, endocrinology, and contemplative studies, leveraging a diverse array of methods from brain imaging to molecular biology. With federal funding from NCCIH and NHLBI, her work has identified both neural and immune signaling pathways that connect airway inflammation in the lungs of individuals with asthma to the psychological experiences of stress and emotion. Extending these relationships across the lifespan with funding from NIA, Melissa’s work also reveals links between chronic systemic inflammation, neuroinflammation, neurodegeneration, and long-term cognitive decline and dementia.
Importantly, Melissa’s work goes beyond basic science. She also examines the mind as a novel treatment target in chronic inflammatory diseases. She has shown, for example, that 8-weeks of training in mindfulness-based stress reduction improved asthma control and reduced airway inflammation in patients with asthma, particularly those with elevated symptoms of depression. She is currently working to expand this work and to accelerate its translation into the clinic.
