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Best Female Scientists
2025

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Best Female Scientists

D-Index
118
Citations
57101
World Ranking
610
National Ranking
372

Psychology

D-Index
121
Citations
59055
World Ranking
247
National Ranking
157

Research.com Recognitions

  • 2025 - Research.com Best Female Scientists Award
  • 2017 - Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
  • 2015 - Fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA)

Overview

Megan R. Gunnar is affiliated with the University of Minnesota in the United States. Their research spans multiple fields, including psychology, social sciences, and medicine, with a strong focus on clinical psychology and behavioral neuroscience.

Their work covers several specialized subfields such as education, social psychology, and pediatrics, perinatology, and child health. The main topics of research include child and adolescent psychosocial and emotional development, stress responses and cortisol, early childhood education and development, neuroendocrine regulation and behavior, child welfare and adoption, birth, development and health, and child abuse and trauma.

Megan R. Gunnar has contributed to various notable publication venues, including:

  • Psychoneuroendocrinology
  • Faculty Opinions - Post-Publication Peer Review of the Biomedical Literature
  • Development and Psychopathology
  • Developmental Psychobiology
  • Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry

Several recent publications highlight their involvement in the field:

  • Institutionalisation and deinstitutionalisation of children 1: a systematic and integrative review of evidence regarding effects on development, 2020, The Lancet Psychiatry
  • Institutionalisation and deinstitutionalisation of children 2: policy and practice recommendations for global, national, and local actors, 2020, The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health
  • Life stress and cortisol reactivity: An exploratory analysis of the effects of stress exposure across life on HPA-axis functioning, 2020, Development and Psychopathology
  • Validation of an online version of the Trier Social Stress Test in a study of adolescents, 2020, Psychoneuroendocrinology
  • Adoption and trauma: Risks, recovery, and the lived experience of adoption, 2021, Child Abuse & Neglect

Frequent co-authors who have collaborated with Megan R. Gunnar include:

  • Bonny Donzella
  • Brie M. Reid
  • Kathleen M. Thomas
  • Carrie E. DePasquale
  • Simone A. French

Their research is recognized through honors such as being named a Fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA) in 2015 and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2017.

Best Publications

  • Effects of stress throughout the lifespan on the brain, behaviour and cognition

    Sonia J. Lupien;Bruce S. McEwen;Megan R. Gunnar;Christine Heim

  • Contemporary research on parenting: The case for nature and nurture.

    W. Andrew Collins;Eleanor E. Maccoby;Laurence Steinberg;E. Mavis Hetherington

  • The neurobiology of stress and development.

    Megan R Gunnar;Karina Quevedo

  • Social regulation of the cortisol levels in early human development.

    Megan R. Gunnar;Bonny Donzella

  • Low cortisol and a flattening of expected daytime rhythm: potential indices of risk in human development.

    Megan R. Gunnar;Delia M. Vazquez

  • Behavioral Inhibition and Stress Reactivity: The Moderating Role of Attachment Security

    Melissa Nachmias;Megan R Gunnar;Sarah Mangelsdorf;Robin Hornik Parritz

  • Prolonged institutional rearing is associated with atypically large amygdala volume and difficulties in emotion regulation.

    Nim Tottenham;Todd A. Hare;Brian T. Quinn;Thomas W. McCarry

  • Child maltreatment and the developing HPA axis.

    Amanda R. Tarullo;Megan R. Gunnar

  • Psychobiological Mechanisms Underlying the Social Buffering of the Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenocortical Axis: A Review of Animal Models and Human Studies Across Development

    Camelia E. Hostinar;Regina M. Sullivan;Megan R. Gunnar

  • Developmental changes in hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal activity over the transition to adolescence: normative changes and associations with puberty.

    Megan R. Gunnar;Sandi Wewerka;Kristin Frenn;Jeffrey D. Long

  • Salivary cortisol levels in children adopted from romanian orphanages

    Megan R. Gunnar;Sara J. Morison;Kim Chisholm;Michelle Schuder

  • Stressor paradigms in developmental studies: What does and does not work to produce mean increases in salivary cortisol

    Megan R. Gunnar;Nicole M. Talge;Adriana Herrera

  • Early experience and the development of stress reactivity and regulation in children.

    Michelle M. Loman;Megan R. Gunnar

  • Adrenocortical Responses to the Strange Situation in Infants with Disorganized/Disoriented Attachment Relationships

    Louise Hertsgaard;Megan R Gunnar;Martha Farrell Erickson;Melissa Nachmias

  • STRESS REACTIVITY AND ATTACHMENT SECURITY

    Megan R. Gunnar;Laurie Brodersen;Melissa Nachmias;Kristin Buss

  • Transition to Child Care: Associations With Infant-Mother Attachment, Infant Negative Emotion, and Cortisol Elevations

    Lieselotte Ahnert;Megan R. Gunnar;Michael E. Lamb;Martina Barthel

  • Quality of early care and buffering of neuroendocrine stress reactions: Potential effects on the developing human brain

    Megan R. Gunnar

  • Stress Neurobiology and Developmental Psychopathology

    Megan R. Gunnar;Delia Vazquez

  • Neurodevelopmental Effects of Early Deprivation in Postinstitutionalized Children

    Seth D. Pollak;Charles A. Nelson;Mary F. Schlaak;Barbara J. Roeber

  • Infant proneness-to-distress temperament, maternal personality, and mother-infant attachment: associations and goodness of fit.

    Sarah Mangelsdorf;Megan R Gunnar;Roberta Kestenbaum;Sarah Lang

Frequent Co-Authors

Camelia E. Hostinar
Camelia E. Hostinar University of California, Davis
Charles A. Nelson
Charles A. Nelson Boston Children's Hospital
Kathleen M. Thomas
Kathleen M. Thomas University of Minnesota
Philip A. Fisher
Philip A. Fisher Stanford University
Elysia Poggi Davis
Elysia Poggi Davis University of Denver
Dante Cicchetti
Dante Cicchetti University of Minnesota
Nathan A. Fox
Nathan A. Fox University of Maryland, College Park
Edmund J.S. Sonuga-Barke
Edmund J.S. Sonuga-Barke King's College London
Mark J. Van Ryzin
Mark J. Van Ryzin Oregon Research Institute
Marinus H. van IJzendoorn
Marinus H. van IJzendoorn University College London

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