Laura Kubzansky Headshot

Laura Kubzansky, PhD

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. Dr. Kubzansky received her PhD in social psychology from the University of Michigan, and completed a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in social epidemiology, as well as obtained her master of public health, from the Harvard Chan School. Dr. Kubzansky has published extensively on the role of psychological and social factors in health, with a 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) biological mechanisms linking emotions, social relationships, and health; b) relationships between early childhood environments, resilience, and healthy aging; and; c) how psychosocial stress or assets may interact with toxic environmental exposures (e.g., lead, air pollution) to influence health.

Dr. Kubzansky has advised numerous graduate students and postdoctoral fellows 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 Foundation-funded Positive Health Research program, as a member of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Healthy People 2020 Health-Related Quality of Life and Well-Being Workgroup, and as a member of the American Heart Association Science of Well-Being Expert Panel. She is a principal investigator or co-investigator on a wide variety of grants funded through the Veterans Administration, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Institutes of Health, among others.