Bianca Sewinski

Biography

Dr Bianca Serwinski is Programme Director and Assistant Professor in Psychology at Northeastern University London in the Psychology minor and in the NU.in programmes, having joined in 2018. She further lectures in Psychology, health-science and social science-related courses at various institutions in London.

She gained her PhD in Health Psychology at UCL in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health in 2017 with a scholarship supported by the UK Medical Research Council. Her focus on the body-mind link included exploration into the physiological mechanisms of the stress response, how psychobiological processes could explain health and illness and into the role of subjective perception and coping during stress.

Dr Bianca Serwinski is supervising student research in the field of Health Psychology at the British College of Osteopathic Medicine and is involved in psychology-related academic research in various contexts. She is the founder of Evidence-it, a company whose mission is to provide companies outside the academic world with support in data collection and scientific analysis.

Qualifications

PhD, Health Psychology, University College London (2017)
MSc, Health Psychology, University College London (2012)
BSc, Psychology, University of Kent (2011)

Academic Honours
Young Investigator Colloquium Award awarded by the American Psychosomatic Society in Savannah (2015)

Professional Affiliations
British Psychological Association

Research

Bianca completed her PhD at University College London (UCL) in 2017 in the area of Psychoneuroendocrinology in Health Psychology. For this she investigated the body-mind link. Specifically, she explored the effects of psychological and psychosocial factors (including stress perception and coping) in relation to the hormone cortisol and well-being. She studied the physiological mechanisms of the stress response, further validating the quantification of cortisol in human hair. Psychoneuroendocrinology explores this way the underlying psychobiological processes in health and illness.

Books

Steptoe A., Serwinski B. (2016). Cortisol awakening response. Book: Stress Concepts and Cognition, Emotion, and Behavior.

Articles

Serwinski B., et al. (2016). Associations between hair cortisol concentration, income, income dynamics and status incongruity in healthy middle-aged women. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 67, 182-188.

Serwinski B. (2015). Associations between hair and salivary cortisol – a study of temporal relationships. Presentation to the Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Psychosomatic Society, Savannah, GA. Abstract published in Psychosomatic Medicine, 77, A-45.

Conference presentations

Serwinski B. (2018). Psiconeuroinmunendocrinología (PNIE) en el proceso acupuntural, Congreso internacional de acupuntura, psiconeuroacupuntura y neurociencias, Mexico.

Serwinski B. (2015). Stress, negative mood, and salivary cortisol output. Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Psychosomatic Society, Savannah.

Serwinski B. (2015). Coping as a stress-buffer during academic stress – findings from hair and salivary cortisol. Young Investigator Colloquium Award, Scientific Meeting of the American psychosomatic Society, Savannah, GA.

Serwinski B. (2014). Hair cortisol as a biomarker of stress: strong associations between cortisol in hair and salivary cortisol. Presentation to the 3rd Iberoamerican Congress of Health Psychology, Spain.

Serwinski B. (2014). Lower heart rate variability over the working day but not perceived work stress is associated with elevated hair cortisol levels. Presentation to the 3rd Iberoamerican Congress of Health Psychology, Spain

Serwinski B. (2014). Lower heart rate variability over the working day is associated with elevated hair cortisol levels. Presentation to the International Congress of Behavioural Medicine, Netherlands.