Dr. Anna Epperson (Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma) is a health psychologist and an Assistant Professor of Psychological Sciences at the University of California Merced. She is a 2023 American Psychological Association Editorial Fellow for the journal Health Psychology, a consulting editor for the journal of Cultural Diversity & Ethnic Minority Psychology and has received funding from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, the Food and Drug Administration, California Tobacco Related Disease Research Program, and the California Department of Public Health. Her research focuses on racial/ethnic disparities in health behavior, exploring how social and cultural factors impact health, particularly in American Indian/Alaska Native communities (also referred to as Indigenous). She examines health behavior through community-based research and her work includes the development and implementation of health behavior interventions [e.g., increasing vaccination uptake], projects that are active collaborations with impacted communities. She received a BA in Molecular and Cellular Biology from the University of California, Berkeley, an MA in Experimental Psychology from California State University, Stanislaus, and obtained her PhD in Psychological Sciences from UC Merced. She also completed a postdoctoral research fellowship in Cardiovascular Disease Prevention at Stanford University and received training in adolescent health as an Instructor and Research Scientist in the Department of Pediatrics at the Stanford School of Medicine.
