The Athena Institute Fund for Behavioral Immunology in Women’s Wellness made its first substantial award in May of 2023 to Robert M Kaplan, PhD a preeminent scholar in the Stanford Clinical Excellence Research Center who has agreed to direct research on which behavioral habits generate measurable improvements in immune strength of peri and post-menopausal women.

With a series of viral pandemics generating fear worldwide, it seems timely to discover what these women can do to build their resistance through their own self efficacy.

The I Ching teaches that the smallest thing in the universe will overcome the largest thing in the universe and that without substance can enter where there is no room.

We hope this new research will generate a contribution to knowledge as we learn how a woman can improve her own immune system to enable it to better withstand the inevitable intrusion of new airborne viruses.

Robert M. Kaplan, PhD, MA, is a Senior Scholar at the Stanford School of Medicine Clinical Excellence Research Center and directs the Athena-Stanford Fund for Behavioral Immunology in Women’s Wellness. He is also a Distinguished Research Professor of Health Policy and Management at UCLA.

He previously served as Chief Science Officer at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and as Associate Director of the National Institutes of Health, where he led the behavioral and social sciences programs. He previously led the UCLA/RAND AHRQ health services training program and the UCLA/RAND CDC Prevention Research Center. He was Chair of the Department of Health Services from 2004 to 2009. From 1997 to 2004 he was Professor and Chair of the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine at the University of California, San Diego.

He is a past President of five different national or international professional organizations and has served as Editor-In-Chief for Health Psychology and Annals of Behavioral Medicine. His 21 books and over 590 articles or chapters have been cited more than 76,000 times (H-index>118) and Google scholar includes him in the list of the most cited authors in science.

In 2019, Dr. Kaplan took on a new role as an opinion editorialist, contributing pieces on about a monthly basis. His work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Mercury News, San Francisco Chronicle, STAT News, RealClear Politics, MedPage, Health Affairs, The Hill, and a variety of other newspapers. Dr. Kaplan was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2005. He received his AB in psychology from San Diego State University and his MA and PhD from the University of California, Riverside. He has served on numerous National Academies activities, most recently as a member of the Roundtable on Population Health Improvement.