World's Best Scientists 2026 revealed!
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Psychology
USA
2026

D-Index & Metrics

Psychology

D-Index
132
Citations
182339
World Ranking
156
National Ranking
97

Medicine

D-Index
122
Citations
153499
World Ranking
3386
National Ranking
1863

Research.com Recognitions

  • 2026 - Research.com Psychology in United States Leader Award
  • 2025 - Research.com Psychology in United States Leader Award
  • 2018 - Distinguished Scientist Award, American Psychosomatic Society
  • 2017 - Top 1000 Researchers, Google Scholar
  • 2014 - 100 Extremely Eminent Psychologists of the Modern Era, Archives of Scientific Psychology
  • 2009 - Contributions in Positive Health Award, International Positive Psychology Association
  • 2008 - Senior Investigator Award, American Psychological for Outstanding Contributions to Health Psychology
  • 2006 - Patricia R. Barchas Award, American Psychosomatic Society for significant contributions to the study of the impact of social behavior on physiology
  • 2004 - Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award, American Psychological Association
  • 2004 - Member of the National Academy of Medicine (NAM)
  • 2003 - World’s Most Cited Authors by Current Contents, Institute for Scientific Information
  • 2002 - James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award, Association for Psychological Science
  • 2000 - Visiting Fellow, British Psychological Society
  • 1997 - Senior Scientist Award, National Institute of Mental Health
  • 1992 - Senior Scientist Award, National Institute of Mental Health
  • 1992 - Distinguished Scientist Lecturer Award, American Psychological Association (APA)
  • 1987 - Junior Investigator Award, American Psychological Association for Outstanding Contributions to Health Psychology
  • 1987 - Senior Scientist Award, National Institute of Mental Health

Overview

Sheldon Cohen is affiliated with Carnegie Mellon University in the United States. Their research primarily focuses on psychology, with a particular emphasis on experimental and cognitive psychology, applied psychology, clinical psychology, social psychology, and general health professions.

The scientist has contributed notably to mental health research topics, COVID-19 and mental health, digital mental health interventions, psychological well-being and life satisfaction, behavioral health and interventions, optimism, hope, and well-being, as well as sleep and related disorders.

Recent publications include:

  • Detecting Depression and Predicting its Onset Using Longitudinal Symptoms Captured by Passive Sensing (2021), ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction
  • Psychosocial Vulnerabilities to Upper Respiratory Infectious Illness: Implications for Susceptibility to Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) (2020), Perspectives on Psychological Science
  • Temporal Links Between Self-Reported Sleep and Antibody Responses to the Influenza Vaccine (2020), International Journal of Behavioral Medicine
  • Leveraging Collaborative-Filtering for Personalized Behavior Modeling (2021), Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive Mobile Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies
  • Lack of Belonging Predicts Depressive Symptomatology in College Students (2022), Psychological Science

Frequent co-authors in their works include:

  • Janine M. Dutcher
  • Afsaneh Doryab
  • Michael Tumminia
  • Daniella K. Villalba
  • Jennifer Mankoff

Sheldon Cohen has published multiple articles in journals such as:

  • Journal of Applied Social Psychology
  • Psychological Science
  • Psychosomatic Medicine
  • bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
  • Atherosclerosis

Best Publications

  • A global measure of perceived stress.

    Sheldon Cohen;Thomas W. Kamarck;Robin J. Mermelstein

  • Stress, social support, and the buffering hypothesis.

    Sheldon Cohen;Thomas Ashby Wills

  • Social relationships and health.

    Sheldon Cohen

  • Perceived stress in a probability sample of the United States

    Sheldon Cohen

  • Positive Events and Social Supports as Buffers of Life Change Stress

    Sheldon Cohen;Harry M. Hoberman

  • Socioeconomic status and health: The challenge of the gradient.

    Nancy E. Adler;Thomas Boyce;Margaret A. Chesney;Sheldon Cohen

  • Psychological Stress and Disease

    Sheldon Cohen;Denise Janicki-Deverts;Gregory E. Miller

  • Social support and health.

    Sheldon Cohen;S. Leonard Syme

  • Measuring the Functional Components of Social Support

    Sheldon Cohen;Robin J. Mermelstein;Thomas W. Kamarck;Harry M. Hoberman

  • Psychosocial models of the role of social support in the etiology of physical disease.

    Sheldon Cohen

  • Psychological Stress and Susceptibility to the Common Cold

    Sheldon Cohen;David A.J. Tyrrell;Andrew P. Smith

  • Does Positive Affect Influence Health

    Sarah D. Pressman;Sheldon Cohen

  • Social Support, Stress and the Buffering Hypothesis: A Theoretical Analysis

    Sheldon Cohen;Garth McKay

  • Social Ties and Susceptibility to the Common Cold

    Sheldon Cohen;William J. Doyle;David P. Skoner;Bruce S. Rabin

  • Issues in the study and application of social support.

    Sheldon Cohen;S. Leonard Syme

  • Measuring stress: A guide for health and social scientists.

    Sheldon Cohen;Ronald C. Kessler;Lynn Underwood Gordon

  • Chronic stress, glucocorticoid receptor resistance, inflammation, and disease risk

    Sheldon Cohen;Denise Janicki-Deverts;William J. Doyle;Gregory E. Miller

  • Who's Stressed? Distributions of Psychological Stress in the United States in Probability Samples from 1983, 2006, and 2009

    Sheldon Cohen;Denise Janicki-Deverts

  • Social support measurement and intervention: A guide for health and social scientists.

    Sheldon Cohen;Lynn G. Underwood;Benjamin H. Gottlieb

  • Stress and immunity in humans: a meta-analytic review.

    Tracy B. Herbert;Sheldon Cohen

Frequent Co-Authors

Bruce S. Rabin
Bruce S. Rabin University of Pittsburgh
Stephen B. Manuck
Stephen B. Manuck University of Pittsburgh
Anna L. Marsland
Anna L. Marsland University of Pittsburgh
David P. Skoner
David P. Skoner West Virginia University
Karen A. Matthews
Karen A. Matthews University of Pittsburgh
Gregory E. Miller
Gregory E. Miller Northwestern University
David S. Krantz
David S. Krantz Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences
Rosalind J. Wright
Rosalind J. Wright Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Daniel Stokols
Daniel Stokols University of California, Irvine
Gary W. Evans
Gary W. Evans Cornell University

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