Fang Jiang

Fang Jiang joined the Department of Psychology faculty at the University of Nevada, Reno in 2015. Her research examines relationship between brain structure and function/behaviors and the mechanisms underlying such relationship, with a particular emphasis on functional relevance of cross-modal responses consequent on sensory deprivation. She uses research methods including neuroimaging and behavioral measures.

William ODonohue

I have published 90 books; and 300 journal articles and book chapters.

Cindy Lancaster

Cynthia Lancaster is an associate professor of clinical psychology at the University of Nevada, Reno. Her research focuses on traumatic stress and anxiety-related disorders. Three areas of specific focus include:
1) identifying factors that increase and decrease risk for PTSD,
2) identifying mechanisms and augmentation strategies for exposure-based therapies for PTSD and other anxiety disorders, and
3) identifying the impact of social factors in the development and treatment of anxiety and stress-related disorders.

She completed her undergraduate degree at Trinity University, served as a research assistant at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (STRONG STAR Consortium), completed her doctoral degree at the University of Texas as Austin in 2017, and completed her pre-doctoral clinical internship at the Charleston Consortium.

Jennifer Rennels

Jennifer Rennels’ research focuses on face perception/processing and development of appearance-based biases (e.g., positive and negative evaluations based on masculinity/femininity, attractiveness, sex, and race). She examines the cues individuals attend to when perceiving faces, how facial appearance impacts judgments about an individual, and how individual differences and situational factors influence perception and processing. In related work, she investigates the origins of biases, why biases are maintained, and the consequences of biases. Her research primarily involves working with infants so as to understand rudiments of face processing abilities and biases, but she also includes older children and adults in her research to study developmental trajectories and developmental differences in face perception and processing.

Brenna Renn

Dr. Renn is a clinical geropsychologist and mental health services researcher. She is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at UNLV and the Director/Principal Invesigator of the TREATment Lab (Translational Research on Effectiveness and Accessibility of Treatment in Mental and Behavioral Health). Our team is passionate about overcoming obstacles that prevent effective behavioral health treatments from reaching underserved communities. We specialize in the behavioral health of older adults and work across adult populations broadly. Areas of clinical research tend to focus on common mental health conditions (depression and anxiety) as well as cooccurring disorder. Our work engages patients, providers, and community stakeholders to focus on:

• Translational research, which moves scientific discoveries more quickly into practice to produce meaningful, applicable results to directly benefit mental and behavioral health.

• Effectiveness research, which identifies which clinical and public health interventions work best for improving behavioral health. We focus on evidence-based interventions for depression and health promotion.

• Accessibility of treatment, in order to overcome barriers to care and improve the receipt and utilization of evidence-based interventions. We focus on improving access through primary care behavioral health integration and leveraging digital tools, like apps.

Our lab develops future scientist-practitioners through mentored training of doctoral students in clinical psychology, as well as select opportunities for undergraduate or post-baccalaureate research assistants.

Dr. Renn has over 45 peer-reviewed publications and has written 10 book chapters spanning topics in depression, geriatric mental health, mental health services, and other topics related to behavioral aspects of health. She collaborates with colleagues across UNLV as well as at the University of Washington and the Southern Nevada VA Medical Center.

Manoj Sharma

Manoj Sharma, MBBS, Ph.D., MCHES® is a public health physician and educator with a medical degree from the University of Delhi and a doctorate in Preventive Medicine (Public Health) from The Ohio State University. He is also a Master Certified Health Education Specialist certified by the National Commission on Health Education Credentialing. He is currently a tenured Full Professor & Chair of the Social & Behavioral Health Department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in the School of Public Health. He is a prolific researcher and as of June 2023 had published 15 books, over 375 peer-reviewed research articles, and over 500 other publications (h-index 51, i-10 index over 200, and over 13,000 citations) and secured funding for over $10 million. He is ranked in the top one percentile of global scientists from 176 subfields by Elsevier.His research interests are in developing and evaluating theory-based health behavior change interventions, obesity prevention, stress-coping, community-based participatory research/evaluation, and integrative mind-body-spirit interventions.

Paul Kwon

Dr. Kwon’s research investigates the role of resilience variables in how stigmatized individuals, particularly LGBTQ and ethnic minority individuals, cope with environmental stressors. His work examines the ways in which people can thrive and succeed despite prejudice and stigma, leading to interventions and prevention efforts to foster resilience in these populations.

Erin Hannon

Erin Hannon is faculty in the Psychological and Brain Sciences department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She received a Ph.D. Experimental Psychology in 2005 from Cornell University. Her research program combines her interests in cognition, culture, infant and child development, music and dance, and language. Her research examines how an individual’s culture-specific listening experiences influence his or her perception of music, the similarities and differences between musical and linguistic skills as they develop and perhaps interact during infancy and childhood, how we acquire the ability to move in time with music, and how developmental milestones in music perception might be related to other social, cognitive, and linguistic abilities and behaviors.

Renato Liboro

Dr. Renato (Rainier) Liboro purposefully chose to pursue and obtain his Doctor of Philosophy degree in Community Psychology because it is the one sub-discipline in Psychology that distinctly espouses the principles, traditions, and practices of research collaboration, diversity, inclusion, equity, social justice, community engagement, civic participation, stakeholder partnership, and capacity-building. As a community-based researcher and scholar who openly identifies as a person of color, a sexual minority, an immigrant, and an older adult, Dr. Liboro recognizes all too well the significance and inherent value of having intersecting identities, diverse personal contexts, and lived experiences recognized and intentionally incorporated in his teaching, service, mentorship, and research.

Dr. Liboro also obtained a Doctor of Medicine degree in the Philippines (his country of origin), and brings to his teaching and research at UNLV medical knowledge, clinical expertise, and work experiences from his years of practice as a Filipino physician and surgeon, and a Canadian clinical and community-engaged researcher.