News

The Department of Psychiatry is pleased to announce the promotion of Carol M. Greco, PhD to the rank of Associate Professor of Psychiatry by the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

Dr. Greco is an accomplished clinical scientist and educator who has a national and international reputation in the area of mindfulness. She held positions at the University of Virginia Medical Center before embarking on her career at the University of Pittsburgh in 1992, and was appointed to the Department of Psychiatry faculty in 2004.  

Her clinical and research interests focus on psychosocial factors in health and disease, and mind-body interventions for improving pain and functioning in persons with chronic conditions. She has conducted randomized controlled trials of biofeedback-assisted cognitive behavioral therapy, acupuncture, and mindfulness meditation in persons with systemic lupus erythematosus, chronic pain, and chronic stress. Her work has been consistently funded by the federal government and private foundations.  Dr. Greco currently serves as the Principal Investigator of two federally funded R01 grants, one funded by the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases and the other by the National Center for Complementary and Integrated Health. With support from a Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) grant, Dr. Greco is also leading a study to measure the context of healing using the patient reported outcomes measurement information system (PROMIS) in chronic pain treatment. Precise, concise measures of nonspecific aspects of the healthcare context, such as perceptions of the provider and expectations of treatment, may account for a portion of treatment outcome variance that is typically attributed to placebo.  Dr. Greco is highly collaborative and has also served as a co-investigator on several other externally sponsored projects.  Her work has resulted in numerous presentations at national scientific meetings and conferences, and over 35 peer-reviewed articles in important journals such as the Biological Psychiatry and JAMA Internal Medicine as well as numerous other publications.

In addition to her extensive research activities, Dr. Greco is a licensed clinical psychologist at the UPMC Center for Integrative Medicine and who also gives generously of her time to mentorship and teaching.  She developed and teaches the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course at the Center and trained over 600 faculty, staff, clinicians and patients in this effective approach. Dr. Greco also instructs first year medical students on behavioral medicine interventions and mindfulness meditation, and teaches mindfulness for clinicians to fourth and fifth-year psychiatry residents. She has mentored numerous students over the years in a variety of disciplines such as dental medicine, bioengineering, rehabilitation science, nursing, education, palliative care, and psychology.