This is my Intergenerational Developmental Health Program--it brings together the expertise of researchers, care providers, community groups, advocates, & policymakers working to improve child & family wellbeing. IDHP strives to develop pipelines of reciprocal learning/translation devhealth.ucsf.edu

Excited to share this Annual Review synthesizing 75+ yrs of research (150+ studies) on stress effects--from pregnancy through adolescence--on children’s mental, physical, social, and functional health. This review fills a critical gap & finds pervasive stress effects. www.ucsf.edu/news/2026/01...

👀 Fantastic new review of disparate literature on stress & development across cog, emo and phys domains. "Early Life Stress Effects on Children's Biology, Behavior, & Health: Evidence, Mediators, Moderators, & Solutions" @nicolebushphd.bsky.social @alliesullivan.bsky.social & Amanda Noroña-Zhou

Very proud to share this Annual Review synthesizing 75+ years of research across 150+ studies on how stress, starting as early as the prenatal period, shapes children’s health across systems. This is the first review to center interdisciplinary pediatric outcomes. www.ucsf.edu/news/2026/01...

My (now) weekly update on 2026 NIH funding. New and competitive renewal awards. 3 new awards (compared to ~100 expected based on recent years). No new ICs... still just NIA, NINDS, NIDCD, and NIDCR. 1/2

Thank you Dr Ron Dahl for highlighting the importance of early and adolescent relationships essential for healthy adults! Wonderful UCSF Psychiatry Grand Rounds.

The average SNAP benefit per month is $177 a person. The average ACA benefit per month is up to $550 a person. People want us to hold the line for a reason. This is not a matter of appealing to a base. It’s about people’s lives. And working people want leaders whose word means something to them.

Damn. This is amazing. £325 per week, paid monthly, for 3 years - and the result was a profit for the Irish economy: www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employmen...

Very cool interdisciplinary website - invest early in child health heckmanequation.org

psychology & psychiatry colleagues: Has anyone ever harmonized data from the CESD and the CESDR? Can you point me to a paper?

helpful directory to guide connecting patients with resources to address basic needs, like housing, food insecurity, and baby supplies: findhelp.org

💡 I'm looking forward to contributing to next week's Science for Society webinar all about the science of stress and stress management! Join us for an overview of best practices in stress measurement, the evidence base for stress management interventions, and critical research on weight stigma.

I’m thrilled to share that I’ve officially started my new role as Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at UCSF. I feel incredibly fortunate to continue my work advancing research at the intersection of parenting, stress, & child health. dralexandrasullivan.com

Hey everyone, Been quiet about this, but I had to give up my home of 13 years this week. Can’t go back to work until August & between moving expenses, medical bills & car repairs, I’m out of money. I need help to get by the next 2 months & be able to report. Donation links below. Anything helps.

30 seconds of Adonis biscuit time for you

San Francisco Trans March had lots of people this year! Marched with Asian Pacific Islander organization Lavender Phoenix, lavenderphoenix.org 💜🐦

New paper out in @jmirpub.bsky.social Scaling a brief digital well-being intervention (the Big Joy Project) and sociodemographic moderators. We explored how a 7-day digital intervention impacted well-being across 17,000+ participants worldwide. www.jmir.org/2025/1/e72053

Moving into low-poverty neighborhoods may relate to lower health problems (as indicated by improvements in asthma symptoms). doi.org/10.1001/jama.2023.6488

Over 100 arrested tonight in SF protesting ICE! Head to 425 7th St, San Francisco, CA 94103 for jail support! Please support Bay Area Anti Repression Committee for bail support!

We've been kettled and are all being detained.

Just got a tip that citizens, including pregnant women and minors, are still being kettled and processed by SFPD. This was after they tried to follow SFPD orders to disperse and got kettled anyway.

As if SFPD doesn’t have enough lawsuits to worry about, now they’re mass arresting protestors. As in 2020, very few if any charges will even stick.

🚨 SFPD has protestors and press kettled 🚨

🚨 Get EXCITED — We are just *ONE WEEK* away from #PNIRS2025!!! 👏🏼🤩 Are you ready to bookmark our final #highlights? 📌 Member-Sponsored Symposia 5 & 6 🗓️ Thu, Jun 12 8:30–10 AM For Details >> 🧵 Spread 👏🏼 the 👏🏼 word 👏🏼 #PNIRS #PNI #Psychoneuroimmunology #Science #France #Bordeaux 🇫🇷

Come build benches this weekend, near Emeryville/North Oakland, 5 minute bike from MacArthur BART. No experience needed! Especially looking for people willing to bike and help install benches, Sunday afternoon--the most exciting part! docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Not sure if you saw this but I found it useful www.additudemag.com/adhd-article...

stress links with EARLIER MOLAR ERUPTION in children. this finding makes so much sense in the broader landscape of accelerated pubertal timing, etc, but i'm still baffled by it. Big study, big data, compelling. 🦷 link.springer.com/article/10.1...

A well-researched piece on ADHD meds for kids- www.additudemag.com/adhd-article...

🗣️ Please share this call widely to support early career opportunities for folks in biobehavioral medicine, health psychology, or related disciplines! The ECEB is a great way to gain experience that is often not emphasized in grad or postdoctoral training. #healthpsych #affectivescience #psychscisky

📢 Deadline extended! 📢 The deadline to apply for Biopsychosocial Science and Medicine's Early Career Editorial Board has been extended to May 1st! Apply to join this vibrant community of early career scholars and feel free to reach out with any questions you may have about the ECEB!

gotta watch all the way through for the great twist ending

infants' cortisol is way out of whack, as a rule, until they get to 6-9 months old. meta-analytic bio evidence lining up with parental experience of babies' odd sleep. to understand pathology in kids, we gotta understand normality. academic.oup.com/jcem/article...

Reminder to stand up for #science @ the civic center (or where ever you live). Bring your friends, bring their friends, and bring some better signs than what I can come up with please. #bayarea www.eventbrite.com/e/stand-up-f...

And here is a termination for a K-series grant - an “early career” grant (if we can call a decade of specialized training early career 🙃) Seeking advice for how to keep doing good science in this climate

Another NIH grant rescinded - The Epidemiology of Alzheimers Disease and Related Dementias in Sexual and Gender Minority Older Adults: Identifying Risk and Protective Factors - 1K01AG056669

There’s a lot to unpack here: Studies (that constitute scientific advancement and folks’ livelihoods) are being cancelled. The rationale given in the notices is unscientific and constitutes hate speech.

A Guide to Multiverse Analyses "The large array of defensible options available for researchers to select along the workflow creates what is known as the ‘garden of forking paths’." Preprint: doi.org/10.31222/osf...

I'm planning to go and make my mom come with me :D Seeking recommendations for signs, currently leaning toward: "Too introverted to be here. Please let me go back to reducing stress in families" #bayarea #science

Check out the option close(ish) to all of us Bay Area and UCSF researchers! (I promise crossing the bridge won’t harm you ❤️) #science

New York Times article now up on Federal Register stuff. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/21/s... 1/n

New: DOGE's spending has been secret. No longer. My colleagues have uncovered it. www.propublica.org/article/doge...

Here are some cool animations I made a couple years ago for teaching DAG-based causal inference Confounding!

I've been stalking NIH Reporter to see if any new R01s fund at the 15% F&A rate, but... no new full R01s have funded since 2/10/2025, not a single R01 - across all of NIH - since 2/08. Only 18 grants have been newly funded - I am happy for the F31/F32/F30, R35, K99 trainees who have received $$.

Maternal brains are highly plastic. This plasticity is evident in the months after birth. These changes relate to maternal wellbeing and maternal-child attachment. See a recent gorgeous paper. www.nature.com/articles/s41... #BrainScience #MaternalHealth #FundScience

Here is the pre-RFK vaccination schedule for your kids. Please download it before he is confirmed and changes/deletes it. Give it to your pediatrician and say this is the schedule you want your kids on. Making this my pinned post.