Directors
Alicia E. Meuret, Ph.D.
Prof. Dr. Alicia E. Meuret, Ph.D., is a Licensed Psychologist with the Texas State Board of Examiners of Psychologists and the Director of the Anxiety and Depression Research Center at SMU. She is a tenured Full Professor in the Clinical Psychology Division at the Department of Psychology at SMU.
Dr. Meuret completed her doctoral studies at Stanford University Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and her postdoctoral studies at the Affective Neuroscience Laboratory at Harvard University, and the Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders at Boston University.
Her research program focuses on novel treatment approaches for anxiety and mood disorders (including anhedonia), biomarkers in anxiety disorders and chronic disease (asthma), fear extinction mechanisms of exposure therapy, and mediators and moderators in individuals with affective dysregulations, including non-suicidal self-injury. Dr. Meuret is the founder of Capnometry-Assisted Respiratory Training (CART).
Dr. Meuret has published over 100 scientific publications and has received ongoing funding for her work from the National Institutes of Health and other funding agencies (>$10 M), including NIH R01, U, and R61/33 grants. Additionally, she has authored over 200 presentations at scientific conferences, including invited talks, keynote and plenary addresses, and psychiatry grand rounds. Dr. Meuret serves on several NIH review and federal and scientific expert advisory boards. She was president of the International Society of the Advancement of Respiratory Psychophysiology (ISARP) and is a member of the American Psychological Association (APA), Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA), Psychiatric Research Society, Association of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapy (Fellow status), and ISARP. Dr. Meuret has received multiple honors for her work, including by the ADAA, the Psychiatric Research Society, and the American Psychosomatic Society.
Dr. Meuret is the 2024 Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board and Board member (ex officio) of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, was past president of ISARP and the Anxiety Disorders Special Interest Group at Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies. She served as a technical expert for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Effective Health Care Program and DSMB chair at UTSW for psychopharmacological studies. Dr. Meuret is a 2014 Beck Institute Fellow and a 2018 Rotunda SMU Outstanding Professor. Dr. Meuret serves on several editorial boards, is a current guest editor for Behavior Research and Therapy, and was an Associate Editor for the journal Behavior Therapy and guest editor for the International Journal of Psychophysiology.
Dr. Meuret actively fosters female leadership representation chairing academic society career development leadership programs, including the ADAA Alies Muskin Career Development Leadership (CDLP) Program.
Media interviews, podcasts, and publications featuring Dr. Meuret’s work include NPR, the Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, Huffington Post, Department of Health and Human Services, and the Atlantic.
See selected publication list at: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/myncbi/1Vo7rEv0ZdxAt/bibliography/47998141/public/?sort=date&direction=descending
Contact Information:
Email: ameuret@smu.edu
Phone: (214) 768-3422
Thomas Ritz, Ph.D.
Thomas Ritz, Ph.D. is a Professor of Psychology in SMU. He received his Ph.D. and Habilitation (including venia legend) degrees from the University of Hamburg in Germany, taught at the University of Kiel, Germany, and held positions as a post-doctoral research fellow at Stanford University and the University of London, UK.
Dr. Ritz is Director of the Psychobiology of Emotion, Stress, and Chronic Disease Research program at SMU. He is a past recipient of the Award for Distinguished Early Contributions to Psychophysiology by the Society for Psychophysiological Research (SPR) and was past President of the International Society for the Advancement of Respiratory Psychophysiology (ISARP). He has served on various committees of scientific societies and editorial boards of academic journals, as past Associate Editor of the journal Behavior Therapy, and currently as Associate Editor for Biological Psychology. His research has been funded generously by private donors and federal agencies, in particular the National Institutes of Health (currently with three major awards for studies in the behavioral medicine of asthma and for treatment of anhedonia), for which he has also functioned as ad-hoc reviewer and permanent member of the Behavioral Medicine Interventions and Outcome (BMIO) study section. He has published more than 135 peer reviewed articles and book chapters, one book, and one co-edited book.
Dr. Ritz’s major areas of research are in the psychobiology of respiration and the airways, behavioral medicine of respiratory disease, and autonomic function in anxiety and depression, with both basic research and translational treatment studies. His laboratory specializes in electrophysiology, respiration, and exhaled gas and breath analysis. In longstanding collaborations with colleagues in medical schools (University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Baylor University Medical Center) and SMU Departments of Biology and Chemistry, he has also implemented brain imaging, endocrinology, and immunology techniques in his research.
See full publication list:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/browse/collection/41096995/?sort=date&direction=descending
Research news:
www.smu.edu/News/2015/asthma-grant-03nov2015
Contact Information:
Email: tritz@smu.edu
Phone: (214) 768-3724