Dr. Jennifer Felder Joins Osher Center Research Faculty

The Osher Center research team is looking forward to welcoming a new member as of July 1, 2018. Dr. Jennifer Felder, clinical psychologist, will join the team as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry. She is currently finishing her post-doctoral training with the UCSF Preterm Birth Initiative (PTBi).

Dr. Felder has just received a mentored patient-oriented research career development award (K23) from the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), which will fund her research at the Osher Center for the next five years. The focus of her research will be to optimize the Mindfulness-Based Childbirth and Parenting program to improve sleep during pregnancy.

Dr. Felder will continue to lead the Research on Expecting moms and Sleep Therapy (REST) Study, which is funded by PTBi. This randomized controlled trial compares digital cognitive behavior therapy for insomnia to usual care among pregnant women. Dr. Felder is committed to increasing access to evidence-based interventions; to this end, she investigates innovative formats for disseminating interventions, such as digital, co-located, and integrated services.

Dr. Felder has extensive research experience with Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), depression, pregnancy, and the post-partum period. She has clinical training in cognitive, behavioral, and mindfulness- and acceptance-based therapies. While she was a graduate student at University of Colorado Boulder, Dr. Felder worked on several projects that evaluated mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) for the prevention of depression, including a multi-site pilot study evaluating a digital adaptation of MBCT for pregnant women at risk for depression.