Michelle G. Craske, Ph.D., is Distinguished Professor and Vice Chair of Psychology, and Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, Director of the Anxiety and Depression Research Center, Associate Director of the Staglin Family Music Center for Behavioral and Brain Health, and a member of the Executive Committee for the Depression Grand Challenge, at the University of California, Los Angeles. She has published extensively in the area of risk factors and treatment for fear, anxiety and depression. In addition, she has been the recipient of National Institute of Mental Health funding since 1993 for research projects pertaining to risk factors for anxiety disorders and depression among children and adolescents, the cognitive and physiological aspects of anxiety and panic attacks, neural mediators of behavioral treatments for anxiety disorders, fear extinction mechanisms of exposure therapy, implementation of treatments for anxiety and depression, and constructs of positive valence and negative valence underlying anxiety and depression. She is presently Editor-in-Chief for Behaviour Research and Therapy and Associate Editor of Psychological Bulletin , and a scientific board member for the Anxiety and Depression Association of America. She was a member of the DSM-5 Anxiety, Obsessive Compulsive Spectrum, Posttraumatic, and Dissociative Disorders Work Group (Chair, Anxiety Disorders Subworkgroup) and is currently a member of DSM-5 Steering Committee.

Dr. Craske received her BA Hons from the University of Tasmania and her Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia.