J. Gayle Beck, PhD , is the Lillian and Morrie Moss Chair of Excellence at the University of Memphis, Memphis, TN. During her doctoral training at the University at Albany, State University of New York, she worked with David Barlow on clinical research that changed the field's conceptualization of anxiety and anxiety-based disorders. After completing an internship at University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Rutgers Medical School, Dr. Beck joined the faculty at the University of Houston and subsequently moved to the State University of New York-Buffalo. Over the years, Dr. Beck has conducted research on a variety of adult anxiety disorders, including panic disorder, anxiety among medical patients with nonorganic chest pain, generalized anxiety disorder in older adults, and most recently posttraumatic stress disorder. She has published numerous scientific articles, contributed many chapters, and authored a book on sexual psychophysiology.

Her work has been funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, the American Heart Association, and various state and local agencies. Dr. Beck serves on numerous editorial boards and previously completed a term as editor of Behavior Therapy . As past president of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (formerly the Association for the Advancement of Behavior Therapy), Dr. Beck has striven to build conceptual bridges between various facets of clinical psychology and to encourage solid empirical work to inform the understanding and treatment of disordered behavior.