9th Annual WHISPR Symposium

Register to attend virtually via Zoom here.

The Mary Horrigan Connors Center for Women’s Health Research is pleased to announce the 9th Annual Women’s Health Interdisciplinary Stress Program of Research (WHISPR) Symposium. The Symposium will take place in the Marshall Wolf Conference Center at Brigham and Women’s Hospital on Thursday, April 2nd, 2025 from 3:30-5:00pm with a reception to follow. It will feature Keynote Speaker Cara L. Wellman, PhD, Director of the Animal Behavior Program and Center for the Integrative Study of Animal Behavior at Indiana University. Stay tuned for information on the awardee.

About WHISPR:

Established in January 2018, the Women’s Health Interdisciplinary Stress Program of Research (WHISPR) advances our understanding of how physiologic and psychological stress affect women’s health and disease, and vice versa, by supporting pilot projects, facilitating interactions among WHISPR investigators and other stress researchers, and hosting an annual scientific symposium for the BWH academic community.

The scope of proposed research includes clinical, translational, population, and basic research studies investigating interactions of physiologic indicators of stress (e.g., adrenergic, immune, neural, endocrine) and stress exposures (e.g., trauma, adversity, cognitive, affective) with women’s health and disease. WHISPR involves investigators from across BWH to develop new research and foster synergy among investigators in this interdisciplinary and cross-cutting field. Learn about past awardees here.

About Cara Wellman, PhD:

Cara Wellman is a professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences and director of the Program in Animal Behavior and Center for the Integrative Study of Animal Behavior at Indiana University - Bloomington. She earned her PhD in neuroscience and clinical psychology from Indiana University and completed postdoctoral training at Amgen. Her research focuses primarily on understanding the effects of stress on the structure and function of brain regions involved in emotion regulation, with a special emphasis on sex differences in these effects.

This program was established with a generous gift from the Gretchen S. Fish Fund for Women’s Health and Stress Research.

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