Note: If you are interested in attending this event, please RSVP here or select the "Register" button on this page.

The eighth and final Faculty Pub Night of the 2025-26 season features Timothy Williamson, assistant professor of psychology (Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts). He will discuss his recent co-authored publication, "Mindful self-compassion for lung cancer (MSC-LC): Incorporating perspectives of lung cancer patients, clinicians, and researchers to create an adapted intervention to reduce lung cancer stigma."

About Faculty Pub Night

Students, staff, faculty, alumni, and members of the public are all invited to the 2025-26 series of Faculty Pub Night at the William H. Hannon Library. Eight LMU professors are selected annually to discuss their latest publication or project in a comfortable setting and format that welcomes diverse perspectives for an inclusive conversation aimed to educate the entire community. All Faculty Pub Nights are free and open to the public.

About the Author's Work

When someone is diagnosed with lung cancer, they face not only the physical challenges of the disease but also a less visible—and often overlooked—burden: stigma. Stigma can show up in everyday moments, like when someone shares their diagnosis and is immediately asked, “Did you smoke?” These kinds of responses can leave patients feeling blamed, judged, and isolated. While stigma may not be visible on a scan or under a microscope, Dr. Williamson’s research demonstrates that it has very real consequences for patients’ health.

Williamson has demonstrated that people who experience high lung cancer stigma are more likely to experience symptoms of depression, anxiety, insomnia, and more bothersome physical problems like fatigue and pain. In his current research, he is working with his LMU mentees in the Psychosocial Risk & Resilience in Stress & Medicine (PRRISM) Research Lab to explore the role of self-compassion—a skill that helps people respond to difficulty with kindness, awareness, and acceptance—in helping people with lung cancer to cope with situations and feelings that arise from stigma. In his newly developed intervention program—Mindful Self-Compassion for Lung Cancer (MSC-LC)—patients come together from across the country to participate in a 10-week group (offered virtually) to learn and practice self-compassion skills to address the emotional weight of stigma.

In this Faculty Pub Night presentation, Williamson and his mentees will share insights from their program of research and highlights from recent works published in Annals of Internal Medicine and Translational Behavioral Medicine.

About the Author

Timothy J. Williamson, Ph.D., MPH, is an assistant professor and director of the Psychosocial Risk & Resilience in Stress & Medicine (PRRISM) Research Laboratory in the Department of Psychological Science at Loyola Marymount University. He is a clinical health psychologist with specialized training in public health and psycho-oncology. Williamson’s program of research is centered on understanding, reducing, and preventing stigma within cancer care, and his work in this area has spanned the cancer care continuum, including screening, referrals to tobacco cessation, active treatment, and longer-term survivorship. Williamson has also spearheaded efforts to change the language used within tobacco research to reduce stigma, which resulted in an official language guide adopted by the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer to promote bias-free language within their professional association and the Journal of Thoracic Oncology.

Williamson is a member of the American Cancer Society’s National Lung Cancer Roundtable Stigma & Nihilism Task Force and the Cancer Equity and Diversity Committee for Cancer Support Community Los Angeles. He has published 35+ peer-reviewed journal articles, received more than $1 million in external grants to support his research, and has been recognized for his research and scholarship at both the University and National level, including the Ascending Scholar Award from LMU in 2024 and the Deborah J. Bowen Early Career Investigator Award from the Society of Behavioral Medicine in 2025. He lives with his family in Marina del Rey and enjoys hiking, baking, and playing board games.

About the William H. Hannon Library

The William H. Hannon Library fosters excellence in academic achievement through an array of distinctive services that enable learners to feed their curiosity, experience new worlds, develop their ideas, inform their decision-making, and inspire others. More information can be found at http://library.lmu.edu

For more information about this event, contact the Outreach and Engagement team at the William H. Hannon library via email at library.outreach@lmu.edu or call 310-338-5234.