Dominik Mischkowski

Physical and emotional pain are unfortunate, yet inevitable, parts of many people’s lives. Such pain can cause significant suffering and often interferes with people’s professional and social functioning. As PI of the Social Neuroscience and Pain (SNaP) lab at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Dr. Mischkowski studies how the physical pain system regulates other psychological and social functions, and how physiological and psychological factors in turn affect physical and emotional pain. His research interests focus on three basic questions: (1) How does the physical pain system regulate affect and social behavior? (2) How can people cope with physical and emotional pain? And (3) what are the psycho-physiological factors associated with the subjective pain experience? Dr. Mischkowski studies these questions using a multi-methods approach, which includes pharmacological intervention (e.g., using the popular painkiller acetaminophen), psycho-physiological methods (e.g., measures using skin conductance, heart rate, pupil dilation), functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), and self-report/behavioral assays. If you are interested in any of these questions and want to join the SNaP lab, you may be in luck, as Dr. Mischkowski is currently accepting new graduate students!

* denotes graduate student author Campbell, P. C. & Mischkowski, D. (accepted). Teaching information literacy in online psychology courses: Effects on student performance and self-reported confidence. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science. *Kim, H., Onate, J., *Criss, C., Simon, J., Mischkowski, D., & Grooms, D. (2023). The relationship between drop vertical jump action-observation brain activity and kinesiophobia after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction. Brain and Behavior, 13(2), e2879. https://doi.org/10.1002/brb3.2879 *Lin, T., Anderson, T., Austin, M., & Mischkowski, D. (2023). Early trajectories of symptom change and working alliance as predictors of treatment outcome. Psychotherapy Research, 33(2), 185-197. https://doi.org/10.1080/10503307.2022.2080028 Khalili-