Healthier Lives Through Behavioral and Social Sciences Research
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News

NIH’s Role in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)
NIH is well positioned to fund the best science in pursuit of improving the length and the quality of the lives of our citizens, while at the same time stimulating the economy.


March 06, 2009
OBSSR Hosts Conference on Dissemination, Implementation

As a way to improve public health in a battered world, understanding poverty counts as much as knowing how proteins fold.


March 06, 2009
Research Funders Collaborate To Reduce Childhood Obesity

A new National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research (NCCOR) was launched Feb. 19 to accelerate progress on reversing the epidemic of overweight and obesity among U.S. youth.


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Calendar

May 26, 2009, ­ 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM
Building a Bridge: Transitional Programs from the Criminal Justice to the Community Setting for HIV+ Drug Users


May 3-8, 2009
Institute on Systems Science and Health


May 22-25, 2009
Gene-Environment Interplay in Stress and Health at the Association for Psychological Science 21st Annual Convention, San Francisco, CA


July 12-24, 2009
OBSSR/NIH Summer Training Institute on Randomized Clinical Trials Involving Behavioral Interventions


August 2-7, 2009
2009 NIH Summer Institute on Community-Based Participatory Research Targeting the Medically Underserved

Application Deadline: May 15, 2009


August 9, 2009
Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR): When Academic/Research Institutions Meet the Real World

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Home > About OBSSR > Staff


Staff

Deborah H. Olster, Ph.D.
Deputy Director

Deborah Olster is Deputy Director of the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Previously, she was Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she maintained an active research program focused on the neuroendocrine control of reproduction, with an emphasis on reproductive behaviors. With support from the NIH and the National Science Foundation (NSF), she has investigated seasonal and pubertal transitions in reproductive function, sexual motivation, and reproductive dysfunction related to stress, obesity and under-nutrition, using a variety of animal models. She has also collaborated on research projects related to stress hormones and human behaviors, the regulation of food intake and body temperature in laboratory animals and color perception and seasonal sexual displays in Australian bowerbirds.

Dr. Olster earned a PhD in Physiology from The University of Michigan, after which she did postdoctoral work in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University and in the Department of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She was an American Association for the Advancement of Science/NSF Science and Technology Policy Fellow in 2000-2001, where contributed to the development of NSF research programs in Cognitive Neuroscience and the Science of Learning. Since joining OBSSR in 2002, she has been active in several trans-NIH activities, including the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research and the Genes and Environment Initiative, developing programs at the intersection of the biological, behavioral and social sciences.

Contact Details
Email: olsterd@od.nih.gov