AUTHOR - SCIENCE OF THE HEART
Rollin McCraty, PhD.Director of Research, HeartMath Research Center, HeartMath Institute
Dr. Rollin McCraty is Director of Research of the HeartMath Research Center at the Institute of HeartMath, a nonprofit research and educational organization located in Boulder Creek, California.
While in the US Army, Dr. McCraty underwent advanced training in electronics and guided missile systems at the NASA Space Center in Huntsville, AL. After his service, he attended the University of Nebraska in communications engineering. He received his B.A. in Technology in 1983, his Masters in Radiational Physics in 1985 and a Ph.D. in Health Sciences in 1999. He was also awarded an honors Ph.D from Ubiquity University in 2020.
From 1975 through 1978 he served as a field engineer in the Communication Services Division at Motorola. After leaving this position, he was co-founder of a successful engineering company involved in electrostatic problem solving. He developed a new technology that revolutionized the industry, and his designs are still in use by most of the world’s high tech companies.
In 1989, McCraty’s research interests led him to sell his company and take a lead role in establishing the HeartMath Research Center. There, he has applied his systems engineering background to the study of resilience and emotional physiology with a focus on the physiology optimal performance. In addition to forming the content of numerous keynotes and scientific presentations, the findings from this research have been published in journals such as the American Journal of Cardiology, Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Stress Medicine, Biological Psychology and Integrative Physiological and Behavioral Science.
His research team regularly participate in collaborative studies with other U.S. and international scientific, medical and educational institutions; they have worked in joint partnership with research groups at Stanford University, Claremont Graduate University, Dalhousie University (Halifax, Nova Scotia), the University of Montreal, Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, NASA Aims and the Prince Sultan cardiac Center in Al Ahsa, Saudi Arabia, among others.
The programs developed by Dr. McCraty became the foundation of the self-regulation component of the Army Center for Enhanced Performance, or ACEP and a number of the concepts were later used in the Comprehensive Soldier Fitness PREP (advanced program). The HeartMath Institute was awarded the contract to developed a per-deployment resilience training for the NAVY specifically for all Sailors deploying on the mission of detainee operations after the Navy’s Behavioral Health Needs Assessment Survey (BHNAS) indicated that sailors assigned to the Detainee Operations mission were at particularly high risk for developing stress injuries and PTSD.
Dr. McCraty has served as Principal Investigator for numerous research studies examining the effects of stress and resilience on autonomic, cardiovascular, hormonal and immune system function. He has also acted as PI in a number of field studies to determine the outcomes of interventions in diverse organizational settings and various clinical populations, including military, law enforcement and correctional populations.
He has also been featured in numerous documentary films such as I am, The Living Matrix, The Truth, Solar Revolution, Transplanted Memories, etc. and has been interviewed for numerous feature articles in publications such as Prevention, Natural Health, Men's Fitness and American Health magazines. Dr. McCraty has appeared on television segments for CNN-Headline News, CNN dotcom, ABC-World News Tonight, ABC-Good Morning America, NBC-Today Show, PBS-Body & Soul and Discovery Channel, among others.