Lauren B. Alloy:

Lauren B. Alloy is an internationally recognized researcher in the area of mood disorders. Her work on depression has had a major impact on the fields of clinical, personality, social, and cognitive psychology. She is currently Professor of Psychology at Temple University. Previously at Northwestern University, Dr. Alloy became the youngest full Professor in the University’s history and the first woman Professor in Northwestern’s Psychology Department. She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and American Psychological Society. Dr. Alloy received both her B.A. and Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. Awarded the American Psychological Association's Young Psychologist Award in 1984, Dr. Alloy was named the American Psychological Association’s Master Lecturer in Psychopathology in 2002 (jointly with Dr. Lyn Abramson), and in 2001 she received Temple University’s Paul W. Eberman Faculty Research Award. She was also recognized by Northwestern University’s College of Arts & Sciences with the Great Teacher Award in 1988 for her classroom teaching and mentoring of students. She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and American Psychological Society. Dr. Alloy is the author of more than 130 scholarly publications, including a recent book (co-edited with Dr. John Riskind) entitled Cognitive Vulnerability to Emotional Disorders. She has also served on the editorial boards of numerous journals.

Dr. Alloy's research focuses on cognitive, interpersonal, and biopsychosocial processes in the onset and maintenance of depression and bipolar disorder. Along with her colleagues, Lyn Abramson and Gerald Metalsky, she is the author of the hopelessness theory of depression and she discovered, with Lyn Abramson, the "sadder but wiser," or "depressive realism," effect. She regularly teaches courses on psychopathology.

John H. Riskind:

John H. Riskind received his doctorate in psychology from Yale University in 1977. He had a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania, Center for Cognitive Therapy, in the Department of Psychiatry, where he trained with Aaron Beck and served as his Director of Research for two years. He has held faculty positions at several universities and is now a Professor of Psychology, in the clinical psychology program at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. He has a strong background in social psychology from his training at Yale University, and is an Associate Editor at Cognitive Therapy and Research and Editor Elect at Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy. Dr. Riskind is the author of approximately 70 published articles and chapters in professional journals. His research interests center on cognitive vulnerability factors for anxiety and depression, and their disorders, in the nature of distinct and overlapping features of anxiety and depression. Dr. Riskind conducts a private clinical psychology practice in cognitive therapy in Fairfax, Va.

Margaret J. Manos:

Margaret Manos is a New York City-based writer and editor. She has contributed to a number of textbooks in the arts and social sciences, and she also writes about the arts.