Thomas Ritz

Education

University of Hamburg, Germany, Ph.D. 

Biography

Dr. Thomas Ritz is University Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Southern Methodist University (SMU), Dallas, Texas. He has received his Ph.D. from the University of Hamburg, Germany, and worked as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of London, St. George’s Hospital Medical School, UK, and Stanford University Medical School and the VA Palo Alto. Following his habilitation and receipt of the venia legendi (license to teach all subdisciplines of academic psychology) in Germany he joined the Clinical Psychology Ph.D. Program of the Department of Psychology at SMU in 2005 and is Director of the Psychobiology of Stress, Emotion, and Chronic Disease Research Program. His research of the past 30+ years has focused on the neuroscience and psychobiology of respiration, the psychosomatic medicine of respiratory disease, and comorbid affective disorders. Much of his work is interdisciplinary with colleagues in biology, chemistry, and medicine, with an emphasis on consolidating a basic research foundation for asthma management and translating basic findings into psychological, behavioral, and life-style interventions for asthma and comorbid psychological disorders. In ongoing research, he studies the role of the central nervous system and cognition in asthma, the prevention of stress-induced respiratory infections, and the biologically informed treatments for anxiety and anhedonia. His research has been supported by federal funding agencies and private foundations in the US, Germany, Canada, and the UK. He is a Fellow of the Society for Biopsychosocial Science and Medicine (formerly American Psychosomatic Society) and currently Editor-in-Chief for the journal Biological Psychology.    

Areas of Research Expertise

The major area of research in my laboratory is the psychobiology of emotion, stress, and chronic disease, with both basic research and translational treatment studies. Our work has a special focus on respiratory disease, anxiety disorders, and depression. Typical topics are the psychophysiology and psychoneuroimmunology of the airways; the neuroscience of asthma; the autonomic and respiratory regulation in stress, anxiety, and depression; the psychophysiology of vagal activity; illness perception and behavioral medicine interventions in chronic respiratory disease; psychobiologically informed treatments for asthma, blood-injection-injury phobia, panic disorder, and anhedonia.

SELECTED RECENT PUBLICATIONS (*student authors or co-authors)

Ritz, T., Rosenkranz, M.A., Celedón, J.C., Davenport, P.W., Djukanovic, R., Feldman, J.M., Forsythe, P., Jajour, N.N., Vercelli, D., von Leupoldt, A., Wright, R.J. (2025). Asthma: Biomedical and psychobiological perspectives. Biopsychosocial Science and Medicine, 87, 428-444. 

Ritz, T. (2024). Putting respiration back into respiratory sinus arrhythmia or high-frequency heart rate variability: Implications for interpretation, respiratory rhythmicity, and health. Biological Psychology, 185, 108728.

Craske, M., Meuret, A.M., Echiverri-Cohen, A., Rosenfield, D., & Ritz, T. (2023). Positive affect treatment targets reward sensitivity: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of Clinical and Consulting Psychology, 91, 350-366.

*Kroll, J.L. & Ritz, T. (2023) Asthma, the central nervous system, and neurocognition: Current findings, potential mechanisms, and treatment implications. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 146,105063.

Meuret, A.E., Rosenfield, D., Millard, M.M. & Ritz, T. (2023). Hypoventilation training to increase PCO2 in asthma with elevated anxiety: A one-stop treatment for both conditions? Psychosomatic Medicine, 85, 440-448

*Salsman, M.L., Nordberg, H.O., Howell, J., Berthet-Miron, M.M., Rosenfield, D., & Ritz, T. (2023). Psychological distress and symptom-related burnout in asthma during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 25, 1-13.

*Nordberg, H., *Kroll, J.L., Rosenfield, D., Chmielewski, M., Ritz, T. (2022). Chronic stress experience, sleep, and physical activity: Relations with change in negative affect and acute stress response to a naturalistic stressor. British Journal of Health Psychology, 27, 449-467.

Ritz, T., *Kroll, J.L., Patel, S.V., Chen, J.R., Khan, D.A., Pinkham, A.E., Yezhuvath, U., Aslan, S. & Brown, E.S. (2019). Central nervous system signatures of affect in asthma: Associations with emotion-induced bronchoconstriction, airway inflammation, and asthma control. Journal of Applied Physiology, 126, 1725-1736.

Ritz, T., *Werchan. C.A., *Kroll, J.L., & Rosenfield, D. (2019). Beetroot juice supplementation for the prevention of cold symptoms associated with stress: A proof-of-concept study. Physiology & Behavior, 202, 45-51.

*Werchan. C.A., *Steele, A.M., Janssens, T., Millard, M.W., & Ritz, T. (2019). Towards an assessment of perceived COPD exacerbation triggers: Initial development and validation of a questionnaire measure. Respirology. 24, 48-54.