Bunmi Olatunji

Olatunji earned his bachelor's degree at the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point.[1] He was inducted into the Psi Chi honour society. Olatunji moved to the University of Arkansas for his graduate studies, where he earned a master's degree in clinical psychology in 2002. He remained there for his doctoral research, working alongside Jeffrey Lohr on blood-injection-injury type phobia.[2] After completing his thesis Olatunji moved to Harvard Medical School where he worked as a psychology fellow.[3]

In 2006 Olatunji joined Vanderbilt University.[4] He serves as clinical Director of Rogers Behavioural Health and Director of the Emotion and Anxiety Research Laboratory.[5][6] Olatunji makes use of experimental psychopathology to understand basic emotions and how they relate to anxiety disorders.[7] During the 2009 swine flu pandemic Olatunji demonstrated that alongside the significant publicity, pandemics can cause anxiety and behavioural changes.[8] He studied the psychological predictors of pandemic-related anxiety. he showed that general health anxiety, fears of contamination and disgust sensitivity were associated with influenza A virus subtype H1N1.[8]

Olatunji has studied the etiology and development of obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD).[9] To better understand OCD, Olatunji has investigated the neural substrates of disgust.[9] He believes that OCD can be characterised by heightened disgust learning.[9] He studies disgust learning using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during disgust conditioning tasks.[9] Beyond his work on obsessive–compulsive disorder and anxiety, Olatunji has studied post-traumatic stress disorder in veterans.[10]

In 2020 Olatunji was made Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair in Social and Natural Sciences at Vanderbilt University.[1]

• 2009 Association for the Advancement of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies New Researcher Award
• 2010 American Psychological Association David Shakow Early Career Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions to Clinical Psychology[13]
• 2014 American Psychological Association Theodore Blau Early Career Award for Distinguished Professional Contributions to Clinical Psychology[14]
• 2015 American Psychological Association Distinguished Scientific Awards for an Early Career Contribution to Psychology[13]

• Olatunji, Bunmi O.; Williams, Nathan L.; Tolin, David F.; Abramowitz, Jonathan S.; Sawchuk, Craig N.; Lohr, Jeffrey M.; Elwood, Lisa S. (2007). "The Disgust Scale: Item analysis, factor structure, and suggestions for refinement". Psychological Assessment. 19 (3): 281–297. doi:10.1037/1040-3590.19.3.281. ISSN 1939-134X. PMID 17845120.
• Olatunji, Bunmi O.; Cisler, Josh M.; Tolin, David F. (2007). "Quality of life in the anxiety disorders: A meta-analytic review". Clinical Psychology Review. 27 (5): 572–581. doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2007.01.015. ISSN 0272-7358. PMID 17343963.
• Otto, Michael W.; Olatunji, Bunmi O. (2011). 10-minute CBT : integrating cognitive-behavioral strategies into your practice. Oxford. ISBN 978-0-19-971301-1. OCLC 953456845.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Olatunji, Bunmi O (2010). Cognitive behavioral therapy. Philadelphia, Pa.; London: Saunders. ISBN 978-1-4377-2491-2. OCLC 651075034.