Nicole A. Short, PhD

Nicole A. Short, PhD

nicole_short@med.unc.edu

Nicole A. Short, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Short received her undergraduate degree in Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and subsequently completed a post-baccalaureate research assistantship at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System in the National Center for PTSD. She earned her PhD in clinical psychology from Florida State University in 2019 after completing her clinical internship at the Charleston Consortium.

Within the ITR-STAR Lab, Dr. Short’s research focuses on the etiology and prevention of trauma and anxiety-related disorders utilizing a translational approach. She is interested in identifying and characterizing cognitive-affective and other risk factors (e.g., anxiety sensitivity, sleep disturbance) for the development of posttraumatic stress and related symptoms (e.g., substance use disorder); better understanding how these risk factors relate to underlying biological processes; and utilizing this knowledge to develop novel preventions and treatments for these disorders, particularly by leveraging technology-based interventions. She is especially interested in better understanding the etiology and prevention of comorbid posttraumatic stress and substance misuse. She utilizes a variety of methods to study these areas, such as ecological momentary assessment (EMA), elicitation and assessment of the human stress response, and advanced quantitative methods. Currently, under the mentorship of Dr. Samuel McLean, Dr. Short is working to better understand risk for posttraumatic stress after sexual assault in the Women’s Health Study, and developing a novel cognitive-behavioral preventative intervention to reduce risk for posttraumatic stress and substance misuse after sexual assault.

Clinically, Dr. Short is a licensed psychologist conducting outpatient cognitive behavioral therapy at the UNC Pain Management Center. She focuses on the intersection between chronic pain and trauma, anxiety, and sleep disturbance. She enjoys mentoring and collaborating with the wonderful students and staff at both ITR-STAR and ITR, and, when she’s not working, enjoys spending time with family, her pug Chance and her cat Stella.