Rate My Professor Vanessa Malcarne

Vanessa L. Malcarne, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at San Diego State University, where she also directs the Chronic Illness Research Laboratory affiliated with the Department of Psychology and the College of Sciences. She serves as Co-Director of the SDSU/UC San Diego Joint Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology, holding core faculty status in the Behavioral Medicine track, and maintains an appointment on the faculty of the UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center. Dr. Malcarne earned her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Vermont in 1989 and her B.A. from Stanford University.

Her research program investigates psychological adjustment to chronic illness across the lifespan, spanning prevention efforts to quality of life after diagnosis, with particular attention to underserved populations and health disparities. Key areas include cancer and rheumatic diseases, beliefs about physical and mental illness, quality of life, prevention, test construction and validation across diverse groups, measurement of ethnic identity and acculturation, and the relationship between ethnicity and psychopathology. In 2015, Dr. Malcarne received the First Annual Senior Mentor Award from the Student Special Interest Group of the Society of Behavioral Medicine. She was appointed Co-Director of the joint doctoral program in 2016. Notable publications include "Coping with stressful events in older children and young adolescents" (Compas, Malcarne, & Fondacaro, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 1988), "Perceived control and coping with stress: A developmental perspective" (Compas et al., Journal of Social Issues, 1991), "When mom or dad has cancer: markers of psychological distress in cancer patients, spouses, and children" (Compas et al., 1999), "Math anxiety in second and third graders and its relation to mathematics achievement" (Wu et al., Frontiers in Psychology, 2012), and "Reliability and validity of the Perceived Stress Scale-10 in Hispanic Americans with English or Spanish language preference" (Baik et al., Journal of Health Psychology, 2019). Through her laboratory direction, faculty roles, and mentorship, Dr. Malcarne has made substantial contributions to clinical psychology and behavioral medicine.