Carnegie Mellon University
January 15, 2014

Press Release: Carnegie Mellon's J. David Creswell Receives American Psychological Association Early Career Award

Contact: Shilo Rea / 412-268-6094 / shilo@cmu.edu

David CreswellPITTSBURGH—The American Psychological Association (APA) has selected Carnegie Mellon University's J. David Creswell to receive the 2014 Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contribution to Psychology in the area of health psychology.

The annual award honors career scientists for contributions made in the first nine years after receiving their doctoral degree. Creswell, associate professor of psychology and a member of the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition in the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences, focuses on how the mind and brain influence physical health and performance.

"David Creswell is already a very accomplished young researcher, and his work is having tremendous impact and moving the boundaries of health psychology forward," said Michael J. Tarr, head of the Department of Psychology. "David is very deserving of this award, and we are all extremely pleased that the American Psychological Association decided to recognize him for his achievements."

A major portion of Creswell's work examines stress, coping and intervention strategies. He has done extensive research on understanding how mindfulness meditation reduces stress and improves overall health, including how it reduces loneliness in older adults and delays disease progression in HIV-positive adults.

In another line of research, Creswell focuses on how self-affirmation reduces stress. Among his discoveries is the first evidence that self-affirmation promotes recovery from breast cancer and improves problem-solving under stress.

Creswell also uses human brain imaging to understand learning and decision-making. He recently found that the brain regions responsible for making decisions continue to be active even when the conscious brain is distracted with a different task. The research provides initial indications that show how the brain unconsciously processes decision information in ways that lead to improved decision-making.

Creswell will receive the APA award at the organization's convention, Aug. 7-10, in Washington, D.C.

For more information, visit http://www.psy.cmu.edu/people/creswell.html.
         
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David Creswell (pictured above), an associate professor of psychology and a member of the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, is being honored for his research contributions, which focus on how the mind and brain influence physical health and performance.