Margaret A. Chesney is a Distinguished Emeritus Professor Medicine in the Department of
Medicine at UCSF. From 2010 to 2015, she served as the director of the UCSF Osher Center for
Integrative Health. Dr. Chesney’s career in integrative health includes her work as the Deputy
and Acting Director of the National Institutes of Health’s Center for Complementary and
Integrative Health (NCCIH). Prior to her work at the NIH, Dr. Chesney was Professor of Medicine
at UCSF where she also served as the co-director of the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies and
the director of the Behavioral Medicine & Epidemiology Core of the UCSF Center for AIDS
Research.
Dr. Chesney has conducted research on the relationship between behavior and chronic disease,
particularly in identifying risk factors for developing disease and creating psychosocial
interventions to address them. The focus of her recent work has been on the role the individual
can play in the promotion of personal health, prevention of disease, and the maintenance of
optimal well-being across the lifespan. In this work, she has often emphasized the health
challenges faced by women, seniors, and the underserved, and designed interventions to
support them.
In 2007, she was named one of the outstanding women leaders by the American Psychological
Association and in 2008 was included on the list of Women in Science at the NIH. Dr. Chesney
has held national leadership positions including president of the Society for Health Psychology,
the American Psychosomatic Society, and the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research. She
has also served as the Chair of the Academic Consortium for Integrative Medicine and Health.
A member of the National Academy of Medicine, she has served on several its committees,
include the recent one on Transforming Health Care to Create Whole Health. She also serves
on the Advisory Board of the Susan and Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences.
Dr. Chesney has twice received the Annual Award for Outstanding Contributions to the APA
Division of Health Psychology. Her other awards include Charles C. Shepard Science Award
from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Director’s Award for work in Mind-
Body Medicine from the director of the NCCIH, the Distinguished Scientist Award from the
Society of Behavioral Medicine, and the President’s Award from our Academy of Behavioral
Medicine Research. She has over 350 scientific publications and received an honorary
doctorate from her Alma mater, Whitman College.