Bio
As a clinical pain psychologist and scientist, I have dedicated my career to developing and investigating brief, scalable, and effective interventions for acute and chronic pain relief, and to safely reduce prescription opioids and related iatrogenics. I am Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine where I direct the Stanford Pain Relief Innovations Lab. As a NIDA-funded pain and opioid research mentor, I enjoy mentoring junior investigators to further their scientific goals and careers. As a behavioral pain treatment clinical trials specialist and principal investigator (PI), I lead multiple active NIH and PCORI-funded multi-site and national comparative efficacy and pragmatic comparative effectiveness randomized pain treatment trials involving a combined 3,200 Americans.
Our research is patient-centered, efficient and low-burden, and offers patients improved access regardless of proximity. I am committed to the conduct of science that is inclusive of people with the least means and the greatest need for effective pain care. I develop, investigate, and disseminate innovative and effective behavioral pain treatments that transcend traditional barriers to healthcare, are low-burden, and provide home-based access to meet patients where they are.
I created Empowered Relief®, a 1-session pain relief skills intervention, to fill a pressing national need for accessible and effective non-pharmacologic treatment for chronic, acute and post-surgical pain. As PI I lead an active PCORI-funded national pragmatic comparative effectiveness trial (online 1-session Empowered Relief vs. online 8-session CBT) in 1,650 diverse Americans with chronic pain of any type. Empowered Relief has been widely adopted throughout the U.S. and internationally (30 countries, 8 languages) across the continuum of care (acute, chronic and post-surgical pain management) and with tailored versions for special populations (e.g., Military/Veterans, Youth, Corrections Settings, Surgery). Scientific findings from our collective work have been presented at international keynote sessions at national pain society conferences in the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, and The Netherlands. (NB: Empowered Relief is copyrighted and trademarked by Stanford University; I receive no personal compensation/revenue from Empowered Relief certification workshops or otherwise)
Three times I have briefed the U.S. Congress on the opioid and pain crises, provided invited testimony to the FDA on iatrogenic harms associated with opioid tapering, and in 2022 advised the Federation of State Medical Boards. I served on the NIH Interagency Pain Research Coordinating Committee as a scientific member (2020-2025). From 2020-2021 I served as a scientific member of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Opioid Workgroup of the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (BSC/NCIPC).
Our work has been featured in outlets such as The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Scientific American, NPR Radio, BBC Radio, and Nature. In 2018 I spoke on the psychology of pain relief at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. In 2024 I received the honor of being named a 2024-2025 Mayday Fellow by the Mayday Foundation.
