Eliza Bliss-Moreau

Picture of Eliza Bliss-Moreau

Chancellor's Leadership Professor

Education

  • Ph.D., Psychology, Boston College, 2008
  • S.B., Biology and Psychology, Boston College, 2002

About

Eliza Bliss-Moreau is a Chancellor's Leadership Professor in the Department of Psychology and a Core Scientist at the California National Primate Research Center at UC Davis. She completed her undergraduate (S.B. in biology and psychology) and graduate (Ph.D. in psychology) training at Boston College and postdoctoral training in nonhuman primate neuroscience, primatology, and systems science at UC Davis. Before joining the Department of Psychology, she was a faculty member in the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine.

Research Focus

The Bliss-Moreau Laboratory conducts translational and comparative affective science using multi-method, multi-species approaches to understand the biological underpinnings of the social and affective lives of humans and nonhuman animals. The lab is interested in how the neural systems that generate and regulate affect develop and change from womb-to-tomb.  We deploy tools to study these lifespan developmental changes from the level of synapses to social systems, with an emphasis on understanding how robust social environments shape psychological and biological outcomes. The lab also has a strong commitment to animal welfare and improving scientific outcomes via the ethical care of animals.

Publications

  • Charbonneau J.A., Santistevan A.C., Raven E.P., Bennett J.L., Russ B.E., & Bliss-Moreau E. (2024). Evolutionarily conserved neural responses to affective touch in monkeys transcend consciousness and change with age. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 119 (16) e2119868119 .
  • Santistevan, A.C., Fiske, O., Moadab, G., Charbonneau, J.A., Isaacowitz, D.M., & Bliss-Moreau, E. (2024). See no evil: Attentional bias towards threat is diminished in aged monkeys. Emotion, 24, 2, 303-325. 
  • Rothwell, E., Carp, S.B., & Bliss-Moreau, E. (2023). The importance of social behavior in nonhuman primate studies of aging: A mini-review. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 154, 105422.
  • Moadab, G., Pittet, F., Bennett, J.L., Taylor, C.L., Fiske, O., Singapuri, A., Coffey, L.L., Van Rompay, K.K.A., & Bliss-Moreau, E. (2023). Zika virus-infected pregnant macaques had smaller infants that spent more time in physical contact with them than non-infected mother-infant pairs. Science Translational Medicine, 15, eadhoo43. 
  • Pittet, F., Heng, V., Atufa, J., & Bliss-Moreau, E. (2023). Monkeys do not show sex differences in toy preferences through their individual choices. Biology of Sex Differences, 14:3.

  • Charbonneau, J.A., Maister, L., Tsakiris, M. & Bliss-Moreau, E. (2022). Rhesus monkeys have an interoceptive sense of their beating hearts. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119 (16) e211986811. 

    Please see Dr. Bliss-Moreau's Google Scholar Profile for more publications.

Awards

Chancellor's Leadership Professor, UC Davis 2023
Chancellor's Fellow, UC Davis 2020
Fellow, Association for Psychological Science 2020
The Society for Social Neuroscience Early Career Award 2018
American Psychological Association Distinguished Scientific Awards for Early Career Contribution to Psychology (in animal learning and behavior, comparative) 2018
Murray B. Gardner Junior Faculty Research Fellowship in Infectious Disease 2017
Kavli Fellow, National Academy of Sciences 2016
“Rising Star” Award, Association for Psychological Science 2013