Contact
Email: fxd213@miami.edu
Roles
Tenured Professor
Director, Scholarly Concentrations - Advances In Mind-Body Medicine
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Biography
Dr. Dhabhar is a tenured professor at the University of Miami. He is the Director of the Laboratory of Stress and Resilience in Health and Healing, and a faculty member in the Department of Psychiatry, the Department of Microbiology & Immunology, and the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Professor Dhabhar’s interests extend from molecular and cellular mechanisms, to integrative physiology, to individual and societal health and well-being. His laboratory aims to elucidate mind-body mechanisms that maximize health & healing, and to formulate science-based, holistic, and sustainable interventions that enable individuals to maximally harness their natural defenses.
Dr. Dhabhar was the first to discover mechanisms by which short-term stress physiology enhances the body's immune system during a fight-or-flight response. He proposed, and demonstrated, that fight-or-flight stress is generally “good” stress and represents one of Mother Nature's fundamental but under-appreciated survival systems that can be harnessed to boost the body’s defenses. He is working on ways to harness this system clinically to boost protective immune responses during surgery, vaccination, and cancer, and to enhance mental and physical performance. Dr. Dhabhar’s laboratory also investigates long-term, chronic, or “bad” stress and its numerous harmful psychological and biological effects that can exacerbate conditions such as heart disease, cancer, preterm birth, anxiety, and depression.
Dr. Dhabhar has formulated the concept of the Stress Spectrum as a guide for maximizing the beneficial effects of short-term stress while minimizing the harmful effects of chronic stress. He is interested in developing holistic, multi-factorial, interventions that optimize the Stress Spectrum to enhance health, healing, and well-being.
Among Dr. Dhabhar's honors are: the Council of Graduate Schools Distinguished Dissertation Award, the PsychoNeuroImmunology Society's Young Investigator Award for Outstanding Research, the Fields Award for Excellence in Research & Teaching, induction to the Omicron Kappa Upsilon Honor Society, and the ISPNE Society’s Richter Award for Excellence in Psychoneuroendocrinology. Dr. Dhabhar was also a finalist for the 2016 NIH Director’s Pioneer Award, and has served on several advisory panels at the National Academies of Science.
Dr. Dhabhar has numerous highly-cited publications (H-Index = 75 (ranked Truly Exceptional), with over 26,500 citations) that have been widely appreciated by multiple clinical and basic science specialties. His publications have also been featured by numerous major media outlets including The New York Times, The Financial Times, USA Today, US News & World Report, Scientific American, PBS, ABC, NBC News, The Miami Herald, and others.
Dr. Dhabhar has been invited to make almost 200 national and international keynotes and presentations to clinicians, basic scientists, corporations (e.g. Unilever, The Serum Institute of India, HP, Apple), patient & family groups, and lay audiences. He has served on panel presentations, including the Stanford Happiness Roundtable, clinician-scientist panels, and on multiple panels for potential donors to Stanford University and The Rockefeller University. He has also been invited to speak at TEDx, TED Salon, and TEDMED.
Dr. Dhabhar loves teaching and enjoys outreach activities including speaking and interacting with diverse audiences of all ages from elementary school to seniors. -
Education & Training
Education
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Honors & Awards
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Publications
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