Isabel F. Almeida, UC Irvine Chicano/Latino studies assistant professor and director of the Latina Perinatal Health Lab, has been named the 2025 recipient of the Western Psychological Association Early Career Research Award. The honor annually recognizes a WPA member who has demonstrated outstanding promise in research, demonstrated through success in publishing articles, chapters, and books and through success in obtaining grants for research.

Almeida specializes in research on biological, psychological and cultural factors that influence women’s reproductive health, particularly among Latinas living in the U.S. Her work is grounded in understanding how cultural factors influence prenatal emotional health, and the biological pathways linking emotional health to birth outcomes. Supported by the National Institutes of Mental Health, her findings have been published in Psychoneuroendocrinology, Early Human Development, the Journal of Women’s Health, and Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, among others.

Almeida earned her bachelor’s in psychology at UC Riverside and her Ph.D. in health psychology at UCLA. She spent one year at UC Irvine as a Chancellor’s Advance Postdoctoral Fellow before joining the faculty in the Department of Chicano/Latino Studies in 2021.

She’ll receive her award at WPA’s annual convention which will be held May 1-4 this year in Las Vegas.