James E Lawler

James E Lawler
Department of Psychology
University of Tennessee, USA

Biography

James E. Lawler received the PhD in Psychology, with a minor in Neurobiology, from the University of North Carolina in 1973. He then spent two years as a Research Associate, Department of Nutrition, Harvard University School of Public Health, where he worked with cardiologist and 1985 Nobel Peace Prize winner Bernard Lown, MD. He joined the faculty in Psychology at the University of Tennessee in 1975, serving most recently as Professor and Head from 1997-2012. He was the first psychologist to ever serve on the Editorial Board of the journal Hypertension. He is a Fellow of the High Blood Pressure Research Council and a Fellow of the Cardiovascular Division of the American Physiological Society. He was supported by 14 years of NIH funding, as well as by an NHLBI Research Career Development Award, and several grants from the American Heart Association. He developed a widely-used animal model of hypertension, the Lawler BHR (borderline hypertensive rat).

Research Interest

Animal models of hypertension; Genetic-environmental interactions; Exercise and blood pressure; Salt intake and blood pressure; Stress and blood pressure; Meditation and blood pressure; Systems physiology; neural mechanisms of blood pressure control.