UTSA alumnus to discuss depression research

By Tim Brownlee
Assistant Director of Public Affairs

(March 29, 2007)--The UTSA Honors College and the Department of Psychology will host a lecture by Christopher Beevers (UTSA '95, '96), assistant professor of clinical psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, who will speak on "Cognitive Vulnerability to Depression: Links with Polymorphisms of the Serotonin Transporter Gene" at 2 p.m., Monday, April 2 in Business Building Room 3.01.12 on the UTSA 1604 Campus.

Beevers earned a doctorate in adult clinical psychology from the University of Miami. His clinical internship and postdoctoral fellowship were completed in the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Brown University. He earned a UTSA master's in experimental psychology in 1996. In the UTSA honors program, he earned a bachelor's degree in psychology and research methods in 1995.

Beevers' primary research interest is cognitive etiology and treatment of major unipolar depression. According to Beevers, he believes that understanding normal cognitive processes provides an important foundation for identifying how these processes go awry in clinical depression.

He also has researched the interplay between biology (variants of the serotonin transporter gene), cognitive risk factors for depression and reactivity to transient mood states. Additionally, he is interested in whether treatments modify common risk factors for depression.

His research has examined whether depression vulnerability is associated with negatively biased attention, thought suppression and poor cognitive change during treatment.

For more information, contact Ann Eisenberg at (210) 458-4106.