Curriculum vitae
Mikael Rubin, PhD
Associate Professor and lab director, Palo Alto University. Last updated September 2026.
Education
- 2022
PhD, Clinical Psychology — University of Texas at Austin
Dissertation: Disentangling perceptual mechanisms maintaining social anxiety disorder using VR and eye tracking
Advisor: Michael J. Telch, PhD
- 2015
MA, Psychology — City College, City University of New York
Thesis: Inhibitory control deficits and PTSD: evidence from eye blink
Chair: Robert Melara, PhD
- 2010
BA, Art History — McGill University
Appointments
- 2022–present
Associate Professor, Department of Psychology (Clinical Area)
Palo Alto University
- 2024–present
Licensed Clinical Psychologist, private practice
San Francisco, CA. License #35280.
Funding
- 2026–present
ElevateAR: a scalable digital therapeutic using augmented reality for vaping cessation in pediatric populations
NIH/NIDA Small Business Technology Transfer Award (R41DA064798)
Principal Investigator, founder of IBIS LLC. $387,369.
- 2025–2026
FirstFocus: testing a novel attention-based training prevention strategy for first responders
John and Polly Sparks Grant for Rural First-Responders Mental Health Interventions, American Psychological Foundation
Principal Investigator. $34,000.
- 2024–present
Testing attentional and audio-vocal mechanisms in iExposure, a new internet-based intervention for social anxiety
NIH/NIMH Research Enhancement Award (R15MH135419)
Principal Investigator. $335,000.
- 2019–2021
Efficacy of an attention guidance VR intervention for social anxiety disorder
NIH/NIMH Pre-doctoral National Research Service Award (F31MH118784)
Principal Investigator. $41,069. Sponsors: Michael Telch, PhD and Mary Hayhoe, PhD.
Honors and awards
- 2025
Investigator Support Program, Apple Inc.
Testing personalized augmented reality exposure therapy for social anxiety disorder
- 2025
Excellence in Service Award, Palo Alto University
- 2025
Pillar Pioneer, Palo Alto University
- 2024
Start an SUD Startup Challenge Award, National Institute on Drug Abuse
$100,000 for ElevateAR: augmented reality to enhance remote SUD treatment
- 2024
Career Development Leadership Program, Anxiety and Depression Association of America
- 2024
Provost Award of Excellence in External Grants, Palo Alto University
- 2021
Ira Iscoe Fellowship, University of Texas at Austin
- 2019–2021
Graduate Dean's Prestigious Fellowship Supplement, University of Texas at Austin
Peer-reviewed publications (42)
- Rubin, M., Stuart, S.,* Santos, E.,* Cordova, M., & Watters, K. (2026). Testing the use of local large language models to extract trauma identification and contextualize posttraumatic stress symptoms from self-report. (Accepted.)
- Hickson, R.,* & Rubin, M. (2026). The influence of mild traumatic brain injury on attentional bias: preliminary evidence. Acta Psychologica, 266, 106777.
- Cole, A. C., Rubin, M., & Lancaster, C. L. (2026). The central importance of expressive suppression to posttraumatic stress symptoms: a network analysis. Journal of Traumatic Stress.
- Watters, K. N., & Rubin, M. (2026). Unique associations between different motivations to play video games and anxiety: evidence from network analysis. Journal of Affective Disorders, 121142.
- Rubin, M., Watters, K., Snyder, K., Dicker, E., & Cordova, M. (2025). Can large language models enhance assessment of Criterion A for PTSD from self-report? Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy.
- Rubin, M., Hickson, R.,* Suen, C.,* & Vaishnav, S. (2025). Multimodal assessment of therapeutic alliance: a study using wearable technology. Journal of Eye Movement Research, 18(4), 36.
- Otto, M. W., Long, L. J., Papini, S., Culver, T., Taylor, C. T., Rubin, M., … Zhang, Z. (2025). Moderating role of state and trait positive affect in virtual reality exposure for public speaking anxiety. JMIR Research Protocols, 14(1), e80010.
- Evans, T., Rubin, M., … Esterman, M. (2025). Eliciting social approach-avoidance conflict within a novel experimental paradigm. Cognition & Emotion.
- Watters, K., Punnoose, S., Hedayati, T., Ghuman, S., & Rubin, M. (2025). Childhood trauma and drinking motives as predictors of sexual assault severity in college students. Journal of Traumatic Stress.
- Schmitter, M., Rubin, M., Smits, J. A., … Vrijsen, J. N. (2025). Exercise prior to cognitive behavior therapy sessions for depression: a feasibility pilot study. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, 1–13.
- Benson, P., Desage, C., Rubin, M., & Bunge, E. (2025). The effect of a brief online behavioral activation intervention by activity type: a pre-registered study. Journal of Technology in Behavioral Science, 1–9.
- Rubin, M. (2025). PoweR analysis in review: leveraging R to conduct power analyses for a range of research designs. International Journal of Psychology, 60(2), e70017.
- Rubin, M., Niles, A., Evans, T., Tripp, P., Neylan, T. C., Woolley, J., & O'Donovan, A. (2024). Measuring and modifying threat-related attention bias in posttraumatic stress disorder: an attention bias modification study. Depression and Anxiety. Link
- Rubin, M., Gebhardt, E., Malloy, L., & Telch, M. J. (2024). An initial test of a new self-guided internet-based intervention for social anxiety: iExposure. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, 1–16. Link
- Rubin, M. (2024). Testing a brief attention training protocol to prevent emotional distress from a fear induction procedure. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 101956. Link
- Cassidy, G. P., Rubin, M., Papini, S., & Telch, M. J. (2024). A Bayesian longitudinal network analysis of panic-disorder symptoms and respiratory biomarkers. Clinical Psychological Science. Link
- Foulser, A. A., Rubin, M., & Telch, M. J. (2024). Psychometric evaluation of a measure of posttraumatic safety behaviors. Cognitive and Behavioral Practice. Link
- Rubin, M. (2024). A network analysis of symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and facets of mindfulness. Trauma Care, 4(2), 167–173.
- Rubin, M., Fischer, C., & Telch, M. J. (2024). Efficacy of a single session mindfulness based intervention. PLoS ONE, 19(3), e0299300. Link
- Rubin, M., Muller, K., Hayhoe, M. M., & Telch, M. J. (2024). Attentional heterogeneity in social anxiety disorder: evidence from hidden Markov models. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 173, 104461.
- Dainer-Best, J., & Rubin, M. (2024). Guided feedback in an online text-based game impacts activity choices. Journal of Affective Disorders Reports, 100738.
- Rubin, M., & Evans, T. (2023). COVID-19 related loss is reliably associated with attentional capture and facilitation by COVID related stimuli. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 1–9. Link
- Rubin, M., Gebhardt, E. S., Malloy, L., & Telch, M. J. (2023). Multimodal remote research on social anxiety using a new teleconferencing paradigm. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 47(3), 423–430. Link
- Rubin, M., Foulser, A. A., Siegel, E., Smits, J. A., Powers, M. B., Angkaw, A., & Telch, M. J. (2023). Low reliability when determining Criterion A for posttraumatic stress disorder from self-report descriptions of traumatic events. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy. Link
- Telch, M. J., Fischer, C. M., Zaizar, E. D., Rubin, M., & Papini, S. (2022). Use of cannabidiol (CBD) oil in the treatment of PTSD: study design and rationale. Contemporary Clinical Trials, 122, 106933. Link
- Rubin, M., Muller, K., Hayhoe, M. M., & Telch, M. J. (2022). Attention guidance augmentation of virtual reality exposure therapy for social anxiety disorder: a pilot randomized controlled trial. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, 1–17. Link
- Rubin, M., Guo, S., Muller, K., Zhang, R., Telch, M., & Hayhoe, M. (2022). Selective visual attention during public speaking in an immersive context. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 84, 396–407. Link
- Rubin, M., Bhattacharya, N., Gwizdka, J., Griffin, Z., & Telch, M. (2022). The influence of PTSD symptoms on selective visual attention while reading. Cognition and Emotion, 36(3), 527–534. Link
- Rubin, M., Telch, M., & Dainer-Best, J. (2021). In game as in life? Linking decision-making to real-world behavior. Collabra: Psychology, 7(1), 28115. Link
- Cobb, A.,# Rubin, M.,# Stote, D., Baldwin, B., Lee, H-J., Hariri, A., & Telch, M. (2021). Hippocampal volume and volume asymmetry prospectively predict PTSD symptom emergence among Iraq-deployed soldiers. Psychological Medicine, 1–8. Link
- Rubin, M., Papini, S., Dainer-Best, J., Zaizar, E., Smits, J., & Telch, M. (2021). Exploratory and confirmatory Bayesian networks identify the central role of non-judging in symptoms of depression. Mindfulness, 12, 2544–2551. Link
- Rubin, M., Bicki, A., Papini, S., Smits, J., Telch, M., & Gray, J. (2021). Distinct trajectories of depression symptoms in early and middle adolescence. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 142, 198–203. Link
- Hsu, K. J., Carl, E., DiVita, A., Feldman, T., Foulser, A. A., … Rubin, M., … Smits, J. A. (2021). Development, implementation, and feasibility of the Brief Assessment-Informed Skills Intervention for COVID-19 (BASIC). Cognitive and Behavioral Practice. Link
- Rubin, M., Minns, S., Muller, K., Tong, M. H., Hayhoe, M. M., & Telch, M. J. (2020). Avoidance of social threat: evidence from eye movements during a public speaking challenge using 360º video. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 134. Link
- Rubin, M., & Telch, M. J. (2020). Pupillary response to affective voices: physiological responsivity and posttraumatic stress disorder. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 34(1), 182–289. Link
- Rubin, M., Hawkins, B., Cobb, A., & Telch, M. J. (2019). Emotional reactivity to grief-related expressive writing. Death Studies, 44(9), 552–560. Link
- Papini, S., Rubin, M., Smits, J., Telch, M., & Hien, D. (2019). Pretreatment PTSD symptom network metrics predict symptom influence in the overall treatment response. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 33(1), 64–71. Link
- Rubin, M., & Telch, M. J. (2018). Gone in sixty (milli)seconds: disentangling the effects of location context on attention bias. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 59(6), 594–601. Link
- Rubin, M., Das, D., Hien, D., & Melara, R. (2017). Inhibitory control under threat: the role of spontaneous eye blinks in post-traumatic stress disorder. Brain Sciences, 7(16). Link
- Rubin, M., Shvil, E., Papini, S., Chhetry, B. T., Helpman, L., Markowitz, J. C., … Neria, Y. (2016). Greater hippocampal volume is associated with PTSD treatment response. Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, 252, 36–39. Link
- Helpman, L., Papini, S., Chhetry, B. T., Shvil, E., Rubin, M., Sullivan, G. M., … Neria, Y. (2016). PTSD remission after prolonged exposure treatment is associated with anterior cingulate cortex thinning and volume reduction. Depression and Anxiety, 33(5), 284–391. Link
- Papini, S., Yoon, P., Rubin, M., Lopez-Castro, T., & Hien, D. A. (2014). Linguistic characteristics in a non-trauma-related narrative task are associated with PTSD diagnosis and symptom severity. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 7(1), 295–302. Link
Book chapters
- Rubin, M., Neria, M., & Neria, Y. (2016). Fear, trauma, and post-traumatic stress disorder: clinical, neurobiological, and cultural perspectives. In Ataria, Y., Gurevitz, D., Pedaya, H., & Neria, Y. (Eds.), Interdisciplinary Handbook of Trauma and Culture, 303–313.
Under review
- Rubin, M., Azari, A.,* & Evans, T. Are audio-vocal features associated with attention bias? Sounds too good to be true.
- Rubin, M. Experimental evaluation of a brief attention training protocol for primary prevention of analogue symptoms following an analogue trauma.
Teaching
- 2026
Bayesian Statistics
Advanced statistics elective for doctoral psychology students. Bayesian GLM and multilevel modeling in R, prior specification, Bayesian hypothesis testing, and causal inference with DAGs.
- 2025
Structural Equation Modeling
Advanced statistics elective. Path analysis, latent variable modeling, clustering and mixture models, and latent growth curve modeling in R.
- 2023–present
Statistics III
Final required course in the doctoral statistics sequence. Linear and logistic regression, multilevel modeling, and missing data in R.
Two to three sections a year, roughly 50 students annually.
- 2022
Research Methods & Statistics I
First course in the doctoral research methods sequence. Research design, hypothesis testing, t-tests, correlation, and ANOVA.
Service
- 2026–2027
Consulting Editor, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology
- 2024–present
Associate Editor, Journal of Medical Internet Research XR and Spatial Computing
- 2024–present
Editorial Board Member, Journal of Traumatic Stress
- 2026–present
Chair of Faculty Search Committee, Palo Alto University
- 2022–present
Chair, Curriculum Committee and Academic Training Committee, Palo Alto University
- 2023–present
Faculty Senate Representative, Palo Alto University
- 2024–present
Statistics Comprehensive Exam Coordinator, Palo Alto University
- 2025–2026
Director, Statistical Consulting Center, Palo Alto University
- 2025–present
Data Committee, International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies
- 2025–present
Science Committee, Division 56, American Psychological Association
- 2024–present
Rigor and Reproducibility Committee, Exposure Therapy Consortium
Clinical experience
- 2021–2022
Pre-doctoral Intern, Brattleboro Retreat Psychiatric Hospital
Individual and group therapy in a partial hospitalization program serving a large rural community by telehealth. Supervisor: James Benton, PhD.
- 2020–2021
Practicum Therapist, Anxiety and Stress Clinic, Austin TX
Long-term evidence-based treatment and brief COVID-19 stress reduction (BASIC) by telehealth. Supervisor: Jasper Smits, PhD.
- 2019–2021
Practicum Therapist, Michael J. Telch & Associates, Austin TX
Long-term and short-term intensive treatment, in person and by telehealth. Supervisor: Michael J. Telch, PhD.
- 2016–2019
Practicum placements, University of Texas at Austin
Counseling and Mental Health Center; East Austin CommUnity Care behavioral medicine; Psychology Training Clinic.
CBT, exposure and response prevention for OCD, prolonged exposure for PTSD, interoceptive exposure for panic. Assessment: SCID-IV and 5, WAIS-IV, MMPI-2.
Skills and equipment
- Statistics
R (advanced), Mplus (intermediate), Python (intermediate), Matlab (basic), JASP, SPSS, SAS
- Research software
Experiment Builder, Gorilla, Qualtrics, PsyToolkit, LIWC, Adobe Creative Suite
- Eye tracking hardware
EyeLink (stationary), Oculus Rift SMI and HTC Vive Pro Eye (virtual reality), Pupil Labs (wearable)
- Physiology hardware
eSense and corSense (heart rate, skin conductance), BioPac (EEG, skin conductance)