Leah Doane

Research Assistant Professor and Lecturer,
Institute for Policy Research and School of Education and Social Policy
PhD, Human Development and Social Policy, Northwestern University, 2008
l-doane@northwestern.edu
Curriculum Vitae

Leah Doane’s research examines the biological pathways through which social relationships can influence mental and physical health and well-being. She explores how physiological reactions to every day stressors and emotions may play a role in the development of psychopathology. Doane, under the mentorship of IPR developmental psychobiologist Emma Adam and anthropologist Thomas McDade, is also interested in how personality or genetic factors moderate associations between physiological stress and psychopathology.

Doane’s research has used ecological momentary assessment methods to focus on every day emotions and processes such as social interactions and HPA axis function. While her doctoral work focused on understanding stress pathways in the adolescent and young adult years, her postdoctoral work at University of Chicago looked at a sample of middle-aged adult male twins in the Vietnam Era Twin Study of Aging (VETSA). Mentored in behavioral genetics by Kristen Jacobson, she explored phenotypic and genetic associations among psychopathology, daily emotions, trait neuroticism and diurnal cortisol rhythms in a sample of male twins.

While at IPR's Cells to Society (C2S): The Center on Social Disparities and Health, Doane will be investigating social influences on stress biomarkers in early adulthood using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). This project integrates indicators of physiological functioning with socioenvironmental and psychosocial information to gain a better understanding of how social contexts “get under the skin” to affect the health of young adults. Doane will use her experience in behavioral genetics to integrate sibling and twin modeling into the biomarker analyses conducted by the Add Health team.

Doane received her BA in psychology in 2002 and her MA and PhD in human development and social policy from the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University in 2008.