OBSSR Past Events

OBSSR organizes virtual and in-person meetings to showcase behavioral and social sciences research (BSSR). In collaboration with our National Institutes of Health (NIH) colleagues, federal partners, and the BSSR community, we facilitate opportunities to network, collaborate, explore, and advance BSSR.

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OBSSR Director's Webinar Series

This series showcases diverse BSSR topics, sharing the latest research findings to advance the field.

NIH Matilda White Riley Behavioral and Social Sciences Honors

This annual event celebrates early-stage investigators and outstanding social-behavioral scientists whose work reflects Dr. Matilda White Riley’s vision of research excellence in BSSR.

NIH Behavioral and Social Sciences Research Festival

This annual event showcases cutting-edge research funded by the NIH, highlighting emerging scientific fields and health advancements in behavioral and social sciences. It keeps the BSSR community and our NIH colleagues updated on the latest NIH-funded BSSR projects and their impact on human health and well-being.

View the list of upcoming OBSSR events.


Past Events by Year

2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | See All

  • June 14, 2023, 1:00pm – 5:00pm | Online
  • June 15, 2023, 1:00pm – 3:15pm | Online

On June 14 and 15, 2023, OBSSR and collaborating NIH ICOs will host a virtual workshop, Advancing the science of aggression across species and disciplines. The workshop will be available for live public viewing on the NIH Videocast. Goals of the workshop include bringing together both animal and human aggression researchers from various backgrounds to facilitate dialogue across disciplines, individual and interpersonal levels of analysis, lifespan, and disorders/diseases; identifying barriers and potential solutions to move research on basic mechanisms of aggression and health to inform intervention development as well as identify opportunities for more use-inspired basic research; and identifying research gaps and opportunities in the science of aggression and health in the service of advancing progress in prevention, assessment, and treatment.

Registration is not required. This virtual workshop will be live streamed through NIH Videocast. Participants will have the opportunity to ask questions through the live videocast.

June 14, 2023: https://videocast.nih.gov/watch=49267

Plenary Speakers:
Dayu Lin, Ph.D., NYU Grossman School of Medicine
Terrie E. Moffitt, Ph.D., Duke University, King’s College London

June 15, 2023: https://videocast.nih.gov/watch=49269

Plenary Speakers:
L. Syd M Johnson, Upstate Medical University
Celia Fisher, Fordham University

  • May 16, 2023, 2:00pm – 3:00pm | Online
Presenter: Megan L. Ranney, MD, MPH, FACEP, Brown University School of Public Health

The United States had more mass shootings than days of the year in 2022, and firearm injury has overtaken car crashes as the leading cause of death for American children. Meanwhile, our youth — particularly young women and sexual- and gender-minority youth — are reporting unprecedented rates of depression and suicidal thoughts. In this talk, Dr. Ranney will present work that illuminates the current state of knowledge on physical, digital, and firearm violence and co-occurring disorders (such as depressive symptoms and substance use disorder). She will discuss novel approaches, drawn from her and others’ work, to studying, preventing, and treating these interdependent crises across the social-ecological model. Attendees will leave with clarity on what we know, what we don’t know, and where we need to move faster.

  • May 15, 2023, 1:30pm – 4:45pm | Virtual
Presenter: Jennifer J. Manly, Ph.D., Columbia University Irving Medical Center

This half-day event featured a keynote address from the 2023 Distinguished Lecturer, Jennifer J. Manly, Ph.D., and highlighted innovative behavioral and social sciences research findings from four Early-stage Investigator (ESI) Honorees.

  • April 7, 2023, 9:00am – 10:30am | Online

The NIH Behavioral and Social Sciences Research Coordinating Committee (BSSR-CC) was established to enhance information exchange, communication, integration, and coordination of behavioral and social sciences research/training activities at the NIH. The BSSR-CC alternates between closed and open meetings each month. In Open BSSR-CC sessions, the public, including representatives of professional organizations, are welcome to attend, and the content of meetings is restricted to those topics appropriate for public awareness or discussion.

  • March 29, 2023, 1:00pm – 5:00pm | Virtual (internal meeting)
  • March 30, 2023, 1:00pm – 5:00pm | Virtual (internal meeting)

Overview

The OBSSR and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Adherence Research Network hosted a series of workshops titled “An Action Agenda: Promoting the Science and Practice of Health Behavior Maintenance.” The goal of these workshops was to develop a deeper understanding of health behavior maintenance to better promote and sustain positive health outcomes. These workshops built on previous efforts by the OBSSR and the NIH Health Maintenance Consortium to identify the processes, components, and contextual factors that influence health behavior maintenance.

  • March 28, 2023, 2:30pm – 3:30pm | Online
Presenter: Monica McLemore Ph.D., M.P.H., RN

The purpose of this session is to honor the work that has been done toward health equity and to move beyond reproductive health and rights to reproductive justice. Participants will vision about the blueprint for reproductive justice and focus attention on what we should be working toward.

  • December 8, 2022, 1:00pm – 4:30pm | Online
  • December 9, 2022, 1:00pm – 4:30pm | Online
Presenter: Alix Spiegel, Science Journalist, NPR

The festival highlights exciting research results, emerging areas, and innovations in health related BSSR. This NIH-wide event enables efficient leveraging of NIH resources and expertise. The BSSR-CC members contribute diverse and comprehensive perspectives on the NIH BSSR portfolio, thus facilitating the selection of an outstanding array of research results that are highlighted at the festival.

View Day 1 Recording
View Day 2 Recording

  • September 27, 2022, 2:00pm – 3:00pm | Online
Presenter: Emily Falk, Ph.D.
OBSSR hosted a director’s webinar on Tuesday, September 27, at 2:00 ET. Dr. Falk, a professor of Communication, Psychology, and Marketing at the University of Pennsylvania, presented: Webs of Wellness: Connections Between Mind, Body, and Community for Making Change. We are facing global challenges including intertwined mental health crises, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, spikes in our collective blood pressure, more frequent and severe climate disasters, and the anxiety that comes with all of this. How do we maintain wellness and a sense of well-being in the face of all of these challenges? Dr. Falk presented findings from her recent interdisciplinary work in neuroscience, psychology, and communication science, aimed at understanding pieces of this question. She highlighted purpose in life as one psychological resource linked to wellness behaviors and described how sharing with other people can serve as a vehicle to shift norms related to wellness.
  • July 19, 2022, 2:00pm – 3:00pm | Online
Presenter: Irene Dankwa-Mullan M.D., M.P.H.

OBSSR hosted a director’s webinar on Tuesday, July 19 at 2:00 p.m. ET, featuring Irene Dankwa-Mullan M.D., M.P.H., Chief Health Equity Officer/Deputy Chief Health Officer at IBM Watson Health. In her role, Dr. Dankwa-Mullan is responsible for the global strategy for driving and building a portfolio of studies to prove the clinical evidence for Watson Health cognitive solutions. She is a physician, researcher and public health leader with nearly two decades of experience in clinical research, public health, disparities and population health.

  • June 3, 2022, 1:00pm – 4:30pm | Online
Presenter: David R. Williams, Ph.D., M.P.H.
The 15th NIH Matilda White Riley Behavioral and Social Sciences Honors was held on Friday, June 3, 2022. Overview: Matilda White Riley, Ph.D., was a celebrated scientist and member of the National Academy of Sciences, whose transformative work and leadership in the behavioral and social sciences at the NIH is honored annually by OBSSR. Initiated as an annual distinguished scholar lecture, OBSSR expanded the event in 2016 to recognize emerging scientists with a competition for peer-reviewed articles by Early Stage Investigators (ESIs).