Roxane Cohen Silver

UCI School of Social Ecology

Roxane Cohen Silver

Vice Provost, Institutional Research, Assessment, and Planning
Distinguished Professor of Psychological Science, Medicine, and Public Health
Ph.D. Northwestern University
535 Aldrich Hall / 4336 Social and Behavioral Sciences Gateway
rsilver@uci.edu
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4013-6792

Department:
Psychological Science

Specializations:
coping with traumatic life events (personal losses and collective traumas), stress, social psychology, health psychology

Curriculum Vitae

Representative Publications

Brief Biographical Sketch

Google Scholar Profile

Silver Stress & Coping Lab (lab website)

UCI COVID-19/Turbulence in Society Project Website

Cascading Hazards in Lake County, CA Project Website

At some point, most people encounter stressful events that can have a major impact on the course and direction of their lives. They or those they love may be confronted with a disabling accident, serious illness, death, or violent crime. In my work, I systematically investigate the acute and long-term reactions to these personal traumas, as well as the impact of larger community disasters such as terrorist attacks, earthquakes or firestorms, infectious disease outbreaks, school shootings, and war. I seek to identify individual, social and societal factors that facilitate successful adjustment to stressful life events and to identify myths concerning the coping process. I also explore the long-term physical, cognitive, emotional, and social effects of traumatic experiences and consider the impact of beliefs and expectations of one’s social network on the adjustment process. Finally, my research highlights predictors of individual and community resilience, the cumulative effects of collective traumas, and the role of traditional and social media in transmitting the stress of community disasters beyond the directly impacted community.

I was principal investigator of a multi-year longitudinal study of the national impact of the September 11th terrorist attacks on mental and physical health. I also oversaw several other research projects, in collaboration with current and former students and national and international colleagues: a study on resilience and vulnerability following repeated natural disasters in Java, Indonesia (in collaboration with Psychology Beyond Borders, an international nonprofit organization that I co-founded and for which I served as Chair of the Board of Directors), a study of a nationally representative sample of over 2000 adults following the massive 8.8 earthquake and subsequent tsunami in February, 2010 in Chile (with colleagues at the Universidad Andrés Bello in Santiago), an interdisciplinary project that examined the political impact of the psychological response to the threat of terrorism and responses to turbulence in our society (e.g., the economic meltdown), and a multidisciplinary project to develop a quantitative index of the psychosocial impacts of natural and human-caused disasters (including health, social functioning, and political attitudes) through the use of vital statistics, archival and administrative information, and other secondary sources of data. Recent work includes a national longitudinal study of the April, 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, the Ebola public health crisis, the 2016 Orlando nightclub mass shooting, and Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Michael. Within days of COVID-19 being declared a national emergency in the United States, our research team began an NSF-funded national longitudinal study of the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic across the country. As the pandemic has receded, we continue to follow our nationally representative sample to study the impact of compounding collective traumas in the U.S., including the war in Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war.

Podcast: The impact of bad news (BBC: All in the Mind, December 12, 2023)

Podcast: UCI Podcast: Managing media intake amid traumatic times (November 21, 2023)

Science Showcase: Health Psychology and COVID-19 (American Psychological Association, September 28, 2022)

Podcast: Twenty years after 9/11, what have we learned about collective trauma? with Roxane Cohen Silver, PhD (American Psychological Association’s Speaking of Psychology, September 8, 2021)

Webinar: Responding to COVID-19: Emerging Insights from Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (National Academy of Sciences, October 9, 2020)

Testimony: U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Science, Space, & Technology Subcommittee on Environment hearing on “Coping with Compound Crises: Extreme Weather, Social Injustice, and a Global Pandemic” (September 30, 2020)

Podcast: 6 Feet Apart: The health effects of media exposure with Dr. Roxane Cohen Silver (UCLA, July 15, 2020)

Webinar: Mental Health in the Time of COVID-19, Newswise Live Expert Panel for June 11 (Newswise, June 11, 2020)

Podcast: Scientists look at perceptions & behaviors, Interview with Roxane Cohen Silver (National Science Foundation, June 4, 2020)

Webinar: Media, social media, and COVID-19 (Boston University School of Public Health, April 23, 2020)

Webinar: Coping with COVID-19 at March for Science (Flatten the Curve Forum, April 22, 2020)

Podcast: Psychological Science and COVID-19, Interview with Roxane Cohen Silver (Association for Psychological Science, April 3, 2020)

Webinar: Social isolation, mental health, and COVID-19: A media briefing (SciLine, American Association for the Advancement of Science, March 30, 2020)

Webinar: Using the psychological science of crisis leadership and communications to navigate the Coronavirus: A webinar for public officials (American Psychological Association, March 20, 2020)

Video of Thompson, Jones, Holman, & Silver (Science Advances, 2019)

Audio of Roxane Cohen Silver on 9/11: Together We Feel (Public Radio International’s living on earth; Air Date: September 9, 2011)

Video of Roxane Cohen Silver on Coping with Traumatic Life Experiences (September 12, 2011)

Academic Distinctions