Francie H. Gabbay, Ph.D.
Scientist, Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress
Research Associate Professor, Psychiatry
Uniformed Services University
Dr. Gabbay is a Research Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and a Research Psychologist in the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress. She received a BA in Psychology and Sociology and a PhD in Psychology from Indiana University, and studied at the University of Minnesota as an NIMH Predoctoral Trainee in Behavioral Genetics, focusing on psychophysiology and addiction. After completing postdoctoral training in psychopharmacology at the University of Minnesota, Dr. Gabbay held a faculty position in the Department of Mental Hygiene at The Johns Hopkins University and was a Guest Researcher in the Section on Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology at the NIMH Intramural Research Program, where she worked in the Unit on Psychophysiology.
Her early research used event-related brain potentials, psychopharmacological challenge, and personality measures to characterize variation in psychobiological dimensions implicated in substance use disorders (i.e., negative affect, reward, and control) and to evaluate their role in risk and resilience for substance-related problems. Most recently, Dr. Gabbay has worked on studies using data from The Army Study to Assess Risk and Resilience in Servicemembers (Army STARRS), including collaborations with Harvard Medical School to develop machine learning models to predict response to pharmacotherapy and cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, and with the Department of Medical and Clinical Psychology at USU to evaluate risk for cardiovascular disease associated with PTSD. She currently leads a team evaluating the role of deployment stress and predeployment factors in risk for postdeployment insomnia using data from the Army STARRS Pre/Post Deployment Study.
Dr. Gabbay is part of the Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) team partnering with DARPA to support their STRENGTHEN program, which aims to develop novel neurobehavioral interventions that target cognitive flexibility and emotion regulation to reduce the negative effects of traumatic stress and prevent suicide. She has also participated in efforts by the CSTS and Department of Psychiatry to develop new vantage points from which to consider challenges facing military leaders, including stressors confronted by military families, stigma and barriers to care for psychological and behavioral problems, and the implications for military readiness of individual differences in response to stress.
Dr. Gabbay has served as Principal Investigator on grants from NIAAA, NIDA, the Department of Defense, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the US Army. She has served on the Board of Directors for the Society for Psychophysiological Research (SPR) and is currently the SPR Affiliate Representative to the Psychology and Neuroscience sections of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She served as an Associate Editor for Psychophysiology and is currently a Consulting Editor for the journal. She served multiple terms as the SPR Council Representative to the Federation of Associations in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (FABBS), has served on the FABBS Board of Directors, and is a member of the Editorial Board of FABBS’ journal, Policy Insights of the Behavioral and Brain Sciences, which publishes research and scientific reviews relevant to public policy.