Elissa Epel, Ph.D, is an international expert on optimal aging and a best-selling author. She is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, at University of California, San Francisco, where she is Vice Chair of Psychology and Director of the Aging Metabolism Emotions Center (amecenter.ucsf.edu). Epel focuses on how chronic stress can gets under the skin to influence habits of thinking, and biological processes, and how wellness practices such as meditation and positive stress can promote psychological and physiological thriving. She is also now focusing on climate distress and climate wellness.
Epel co-wrote “The Telomere Effect: A revolutionary approach to living younger, longer” with nobel laureate Liz Blackburn, a New York Times best seller (and translated into 30 languages) and the new book “The Stress Prescription; 7 days to more joy and ease”. She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, and past President of the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research.