Investigators

(alphabetical listing)

Mikel Aickin, Ph.D.

Research Professor, Program in Integrative Medicine and Dept. of Family and Community Medicine, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

Dr. Mikel Aickin has more than 35 years of experience as a biostatistician collaborating with researchers in a wide variety of areas in biomedicine, including cancer prevention, cancer genetics, public health, dietary assessment, dietary intervention, bone mineral measurement and exercise/diet intervention, weight loss intervention, blood pressure intervention, chiropractic intervention, mechanistic studies of acupuncture, and life-style behavior modification. Dr. Aickin has been biometry core leader on program projects in cancer prevention and control, and CAM treatments for temporomandibular joint disorder. He has been director of biometry at the Arizona Cancer Center, as well as at the University of Arizona Medical Center. He is currently working in a several areas, including causal analysis, compartmental modeling, design of early-phase CAM research studies, and applications of dynamic systems theory to biomedicine. In addition to collaborations with a wide variety of researchers, Dr. Aickin has completed methodology projects on the effectiveness of strategies of searching MedLine, causal analysis of breast cancer incidence, and a novel statistical method for co-occurrences of events having applications ranging from causal disease models to analysis of genomic/proteomic microarray data.

Ann Baldwin, Ph.D.

Iris Bell, M.D., Ph.D., D.Hom

Dr. Bell is currently Professor of Family and Community Medicine, Psychiatry, Psychology, Medicine, and Public Health at the University of Arizona College of Medicine.

Dr. Bell graduated with an AB degree from Harvard University, magna cum laude in biology. She then received her PhD in Neuro- and Biobehavioral Sciences (studying the effects of diet on sleep) and her MD from Stanford University. After completing her psychiatry residency at the University of California - San Francisco, Dr. Bell served as a faculty member in Psychiatry at the University of California - San Francisco and, later, at Harvard Medical School. She is board-certified in psychiatry, with added qualification in geriatric psychiatry. She has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles, as well as over a dozen book chapters, and a monograph on environmental chemical sensitivity. She has received grant funding from the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and numerous private foundations and studied topics ranging from biofeedback and psychophysiology to nutrition in dementia and depression to the neurobiology of environmental illness to individual difference predictors of excellent outcomes during classical homeopathic treatment. She also directs an NIH-funded T32 Complementary and Alternative Medicine Research Training Grant for predoctoral and postdoctoral fellows. She is the author of the new e-book and e-workbook, “Getting Whole, Getting Well: 5 Keys for Understanding How to Heal from Chronic Disease,” available athttp://www.gettingwhole.com.

Melinda H. Connor, Ph.D., AMP

Dr. Melinda Connor is the Director of the Karen Connor Optimal Healing Research program at the Laboratory for Advances in Consciousness and Health at the University of Arizona.

 

Her research focuses on Biofield therapies. Dr. Connor holds a MA in Counciling Psychology from University of San Francisco and a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from California Coast University. Her dissertation combined telemedicine technology with providing psychological services for developmentally delayed children residing in a rural community. In addition, she has completed a one year Neuropsychology rotation with Shasta Community Health Center and a three year NIH T32 Post Doctoral Fellowship in CAM Research at D. Andrew Weil's Program in Integrative Medicine at the Unicersity of Arizona under Dr. Iris Bell and mentored by Dr. Gary Schwartz. Dr. Connor is a board certified Alternative Medicine Practitioner by the American Alternative Medicine Association. Dr. Connor is the former director for the Earthsongs Group providing “Continuing Education for the Healer's Professional Development.”

Kathy Creath, Ph.D., Ph.D.

Mary Koithan, RN, Ph.D., APRN, CNS

Dr. Mary Koithan is currently a Research Associate Professor at the Program in Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona where she is responsible for program evaluation activities as well as teaching within the NIH-funded postdoctoral fellowship program to prepare interdisciplinary research scientists for academic careers in Complementary and Alternative Medicine and to further the scientific development of the field.

 

Dr. Koithan has been funded to study holistic healing by several extramural sources, including NIH. She is considered to be one the international leaders in whole systems healing and research methodologies and participates in international research collaborations to explore whole systems and whole person healing. She also holds appointments in Family and Community Medicine and serves as the Director of Curriculum and Evaluation at the University of Arizona, College of Nursing. As a nurse, Dr. Koithan has had a long-standing interest in holistic healing and health promotion, particularly among chronically ill populations. She is a member of AHNA and serves as the educational evaluator for the EAC and EPC.

Gary E. Schwartz, Ph.D.

Director of the VERITAS Research Program, is a professor of Psychology, Medicine, Neurology, Psychiatry, and Surgery at the University of Arizona and director of its Laboratory for Advances in Consciousness and Health (formerly the Human Energy Systems Laboratory) and its Center for Frontier Medicine in Biofield Science.

 

After receiving his doctorate from Harvard University, he served as a professor of psychology and psychiatry at Yale University, director of the Yale Psychophysiology Center, and co-director of the Yale Behavioral Medicine Clinic. Dr. Schwartz has published more than four hundred scientific papers, edited eleven academic books, is the author of The Afterlife Experiments : Breakthrough Scientific Evidence of Life After Death, The Truth About Medium: Extraordinary Experiments with the real Allison DuBois of NBC's Medium and other Remarkable Psychics, and The G.O.D. Experiments : How Science Is Discovering God In Everything, Including Us, and is the co-author of The Living Energy Universe.

Current Predoctoral Fellows

Mary Flores

Current Research Assistants

Genevieve Tau

Genevieve Tau is a Senior at the University of Arizona, currently seeking her BA in Psychology and a Thematic Minor in Violence against Women, and Art Therapy. Mentored by Dr. Gary Schwartz, Director of the Human Energy Systems Laboratory and the NIH Center for Frontier Medicine in Biofield Science. Supervised by Dr. Melinda Connor,

 

Genevieve is the Research Assistant for the Karen Connor Optimal Healing Research Program at the Human Energy System’s Laboratory at the University of Arizona. Genevieve will continue with her development as a psychologist upon her graduation.

 

Technical Support

Sabrina Lewis

Sabrina Lewis has been providing technical support for the program since it's start in 2005.  Currently a student at Saybrook University Sabrina is gifted in her ability to create harmoney between machines and those that must use them.