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HDFS and YDI Distinguished Scholar Talk

 

The Department of Human Development and Family Science and The Youth Development Institute present a Distinguished Scholar Talk with Dr. Idan Shalev: Biopsychosocial Consequences of Early-Life Adversity: New Insights from the Science of Aging. The talk will be held 11:30 a.m. Friday, Aug. 23 in the Miller Learning Center Reading Room - Room 303. 

Dr. Shalev will discuss the current state of the science of how early-life adversity can ‘get under the skin’ and program biological systems, which in turn may increase risk for later-life physical and mental-health problems. In order to evoke change in the health trajectories for survivors, we need to fill critical gaps in our understanding of this ‘biological embedding’, and to further explore mechanisms of resilience. Dr. Shalev will highlight the role of cellular aging as a potential platform for discovery and intervention studies, as well as limitations in the field and innovative dynamic approaches to investigate the biological embedding of early trauma.

Dr. Idan Shalev, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biobehavioral Health at The Pennsylvania State University. His research is focused on understanding how biopsychosocial processes across the lifespan, and at multiple time scales, influence variability in systemic dysfunction, aging and disease decades later, through changes in biological aging.

Shalev’s research combines the disciplines of molecular genetics, endocrinology, neurobiology and psychology. The goal of this research is to pinpoint behavioral and molecular targets for public health observation and clinical treatments applications. Shalev is a member of the Telomere Research Network (TRN) Steering Committee funded by the NIEHS and NIA. The goal of the TRN is to fill critical gaps in the field by testing salient methodological aspects, clarify technical laboratory procedures, enable comparison between measurement methods, and advance a set of guidelines for measuring telomere length as part of the TRN consortium. He is the past Mark T. Greenberg Early Career Professor for the Study of Children's Health and Development and an author of more than 80 scientific articles and chapters.

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