Miriam Hospital Psychologist Honored With Bruce M. Selya Award For Excellence In Research
(posted November 13, 2009)
Jeanne McCaffery, PhD, a psychologist at The Miriam Hospital, recently received the 2009 Bruce M. Selya Award for Excellence in Research. The Honorable Judge Selya, United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, presented the award that bears his name during the Lifespan 17th Annual Research Celebration.
Lifespan instituted the Excellence in Research Award in Judge Selya’s name in 1999 to honor the first Lifespan Board Chairman for his commitment to academic medicine. The award recognizes research excellence at the level of the independent investigator and serves to enhance the visibility and role of research within the Lifespan community.
A psychologist at The Miriam Hospital’s Weight Control and Diabetes Research Center and an assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, McCaffery was honored for her research on the relationship between genetics and behavioral factors in both cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes.
“Dr. McCaffery is a rising star in the Lifespan research community who truly personifies the spirit of this award,” said Judge Selya. “She is obviously a skilled and effective researcher and teacher who has already accomplished much in her academic career. Her research contributions could someday play a major role in our battle against devastating illnesses like obesity, heart disease and diabetes that affect millions of Americans each year.”
Selya added, “We are extremely fortunate to have such a talented investigator on board who will continue to build our position as a major national research center.”
McCaffery’s most recent study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, shed some light on the biological factors that may contribute to weight loss maintenance. According to her findings, people who have successfully maintained a significant weight loss may learn to respond differently to food cues than normal weight or obese individuals, leading researchers to believe that brain activity could influence behaviors – including food intake – that promote long-term weight control.
Earlier this year, McCaffery was lead author on a study that found genetic factors might predict depression in heart disease patients. Because the genes identified were related to the vascular system, the findings suggest that vascular health – which includes the body’s network of blood vessels, arteries and veins – may be a predictor of depression in individuals with heart disease.
McCaffery’s past research interests include twin and family studies, genetic and environmental associations between depression and smoking behavior, environmental contributions of socioeconomic status to health behaviors and cardiovascular disease, and specific variants in DNA that predict physiological responses to psychological stress.
A resident of West Greenwich, McCaffery received her undergraduate degree from Colgate University and her doctorate in clinical and health psychology from the University of Pittsburgh. She remained in Providence after serving as a clinical intern with the Brown Clinical Psychology Training Consortium, and has been a staff psychologist with The Miriam since 2001.
McCaffery is the author of nearly 40 peer-reviewed papers and has served as principal investigator and co-investigator on numerous grants from the National Institutes of Health. She serves on the editorial board of Psychosomatic Medicine and is a consulting reviewer for a number of top medical journals, including the American Journal of Cardiology, Archives of General Psychiatry, Journal of the American Medical Association, Annals of Behavioral Medicine and Circulation. McCaffery is also a member of the American Psychosomatic Society, American Psychological Association and The Obesity Society.