Jane M. Simoni is an American clinical psychologist serving as the

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in 1887 and is part of the United States Department of Health and Human Service ...

(NIH) associate director for behavioral and social sciences research and director of the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) since July 2023. She was previously a professor at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...

from 2001 to 2023.

Life

Simoni earned her B.A. at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

and her Ph.D. at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school the ...

. She completed postdoctoral fellowships at the

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in ...

and

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

. A

clinical psychologist Clinical psychology is an integration of human science, behavioral science, theory, and clinical knowledge for the purpose of understanding, preventing, and relieving psychologically-based distress or dysfunction and to promote subjective well ...

, Simoni joined the faculty of the

(UW) in 2001, where she is a professor and director of clinical training in the department of psychology. She is the founding director of UW's

Behavioral Research Behavioural science is the branch of science concerned with human behaviour.Hallsworth, M. (2023). A manifesto for applying behavioural science. ''Nature Human Behaviour'', ''7''(3), 310-322. While the term can technically be applied to the stu ...

Center for HIV. She also co-directed the UW/Fred Hutch Center for AIDS Research. Her research focused on

health disparities Health equity arises from access to the social determinants of health, specifically from wealth, power and prestige. Individuals who have consistently been deprived of these three determinants are significantly disadvantaged from health inequit ...

and resilience among populations that have been socially marginalized, including persons with

HIV The human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) are two species of '' Lentivirus'' (a subgroup of retrovirus) that infect humans. Over time, they cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which progressive failure of the im ...

and other chronic illnesses,

Latinx ''Latinx'' is an English neologism used to refer to people with Latin American cultural or ethnic identity in the United States. The term aims to be a gender-neutral alternative to ''Latino'' and ''Latina'' by replacing the masculine and fem ...

, LGBT, and Indigenous peoples. Her intervention research has examined behavioral aspects of chronic illness, using mixed methods and

clinical trial Clinical trials are prospective biomedical or behavioral research studies on human subject research, human participants designed to answer specific questions about biomedical or behavioral interventions, including new treatments (such as novel v ...

s to evaluate strategies such as peer support,

medical record The terms medical record, health record and medical chart are used somewhat interchangeably to describe the systematic documentation of a single patient's medical history and health care, care across time within one particular health care provide ...

alerts, provider training and counseling and

mHealth mHealth (also written as m-health or mhealth) is an abbreviation for mobile health, a term used for the practice of medicine and public health supported by mobile devices. The term is most commonly used in reference to using mobile communicatio ...

to promote treatment engagement and health outcomes. Simoni has led more than two dozen research projects, including

(NIH)-funded studies in New York City, Seattle, the

Mexico–United States border The international border separating Mexico and the United States extends from the Pacific Ocean in the west to the Gulf of Mexico in the east. The border traverses a variety of terrains, ranging from urban areas to deserts. It is the List of ...

, Beijing, Shanghai, Haiti and Kenya. On July 30, 2023, Simoni became the NIH associate director for behavioral and

social science Social science (often rendered in the plural as the social sciences) is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among members within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the ...

s research and director of the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Simoni, Jane M Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) Princeton University alumni University of California, Los Angeles alumni University of Washington faculty National Institutes of Health people 21st-century American women scientists 21st-century American psychologists American women psychologists American clinical psychologists