Fall 2025

Editor's Note

Career development isn’t always linear, but it helps to picture a ladder. Wherever you stand, your role is twofold: reach up to connect with those ahead who can guide, support, and advocate for you, and turn behind you to mentor and encourage those just starting their climb.

Navigating the Job Market: Insights from SBM Students and Trainees

In mid-August 2025, we asked current SBM students and trainees who had been on the job market in the past 6 months about their job search strategies. We aimed to crowdsource advice and ideas for where and how to search for jobs in a challenging employment environment. Among 26 respondents, our summary focuses on responses from 25 individuals who are current or recent PhD students or postdoctoral trainees.

MOST Made Simple: How to Avoid Common Errors when Publishing your Preparation Phase Research

There is increasing interest among researchers in studying the optimization of biobehavioral and behavioral interventions. For example, in the last 5 years, there have been over 1,000 publications indexed in PubMed that have cited the use of the Multiphase Optimization Strategy (MOST), which is the leading framework to guide the optimization of interventions.

Burning Both Ends: The Hidden Connection Between Smoking and Chronic Pain

Although the prevalence of cigarette smoking has continued to decrease in the general population (~14%), this decrease has not been reflected among individuals with chronic pain in whom smoking prevalence remains as high as 30-50%.

Intentional Integration of SciComm into Training and Development Plans

Science communication (SciComm) bridges the gap between science and public understanding. Increasingly, SciComm skills are key to professional development of behavioral scientists at all levels. We are more effective when we can explain complex concepts in clear and accessible language and tailor our messages to different audiences, yet training in these skills has not been traditionally emphasized or formalized.

Improving Health and Treatment Planning by Focusing on Meaning in Life

During my first year as a postdoctoral fellow, a psychologist and faculty member of a prominent university was discussing the real-world applicability of studying existential anxiety (i.e., anxiety derived from the finiteness of life) as an academic pursuit. This was their passion, but they also had a nagging feeling that their work (and mine) could only go so far in being important to people other than academics. Admittedly, I understood where they were coming from.

Trauma-Sensitive Parenting: Breaking Intergenerational Cycles of Violence

Trauma, broadly defined as the lasting psychological and physiological imprint of overwhelming or distressing experiences, rarely ends with one generation. More than half of adults live with unresolved trauma, which can cascade across families in two ways: intergenerational trauma, where parental unresolved experiences shape how they care for their children, and transgenerational trauma, where the impact extends beyond the immediate parent–child relationship to affect multiple generations.

Mentorship as a DEI Strategy

Mentorship is more than a professional development tool-it is a transformative strategy for advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion in behavioral medicine.