Cinnamon Bloss, PhD

Dr. Cinnamon Bloss is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry (primary) and Family Medicine and Public Health (secondary), Division of Health Policy at the University of California, San Diego. Dr. Bloss has an adjunct appointment as a Policy Analyst at the J. Craig Venter Institute and is a licensed clinical psychologist. Dr. Bloss’ current research focuses on the individual and societal impacts of emerging biomedical technologies. Dr. Bloss’ background is in clinical psychology, statistical genetics, genomic medicine, biomedical ethics, and health policy. Dr. Bloss has conducted both candidate gene and genome-wide association studies of neurocognitive phenotypes, as well as empirical work on biomedical ethics topics in the area of genetic testing, genome sequencing, and wireless sensors. Prior to joining UCSD, Dr. Bloss was Director of Social Sciences and Bioethics at the Scripps Translational Science Institute, where she was a member of the Scripps Clinical and Translational Science Award Executive Committee. Dr. Bloss has previously been the PI of a NIH/NHGRI R21 grant to study consumer psychological and behavioral response to direct-to-consumer genomic testing. From this work, she published a seminal article in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented invited testimony based on the findings before a Food and Drug Administration Advisory Panel to inform consumer genomics policy. Dr. Bloss has been a Co-Investigator on several previously funded NIH grants and has published over 60 papers and mentored over 30 students, ranging in level from high school to post-doctoral fellow.