Rate My Professor David Sbarra

David Sbarra is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Arizona, with additional appointments as Professor of Family Studies and Human Development and Professor at the Evelyn F. McKnight Brain Institute. He serves as the EOS Foundation Endowed Chair in Health Psychology, Director of the Laboratory for Social Connectedness and Health, Director of the Health Psychology and Behavioral Medicine Minor, and Interim Director of Belonging and Community. Sbarra received a B.S. from Cornell University in 1996, completed a clinical internship at the University of Wisconsin Department of Psychiatry, and earned his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia in 2004.

His research focuses on social relationships and health, including the effects of divorce, marital separation, loneliness, and other stressors on physical and mental well-being. Sbarra utilizes genetically-informed approaches such as twin studies, polygenic risk scores, and Mendelian Randomization, as well as quantitative methods for analyzing change and open science practices. Key publications include Bourassa and Sbarra (2024), Trauma, adversity, and biological aging: Behavioral mechanisms relevant to treatment and theory, Translational Psychiatry; Sbarra et al. (2023), Loneliness and depression: Bidirectional Mendelian Randomization analyses using data from three large genome-wide association studies, Molecular Psychiatry; Manvelian et al. (2023), Promoting attachment security during the transition to college: A pilot study of emotionally focused mentoring, Journal of Social and Personal Relationships; Whisman, Sbarra, and Beach (2021), Intimate relationships and depression: Searching for causation in the sea of association, Annual Review of Clinical Psychology; and Holt-Lunstad, Robles, and Sbarra (2017), Advancing social connection as a public health priority in the United States, American Psychologist. He received the 2014 Herbert Weiner Early Career Award from the American Psychosomatic Society and the 2019 Graduate Teaching and Mentoring Award from the University of Arizona Graduate College. Sbarra has co-edited special issues on the psychophysiology of relationships and on health, emotions, and relationships. His research, supported by the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation and cited more than 13,000 times, has advanced knowledge of relationship transitions and health outcomes in clinical and social psychology.