Advisory Board
Member

Cindy M. Meston, Ph.D.

Professor of Clinical Psychology and the Director of the Sexual Psychophysiology Laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin

CINDY M. MESTON is a Professor of Clinical Psychology and the Director of the Sexual Psychophysiology Laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin (www.mestonlab.com) - one of the few laboratories in the world devoted exclusively to the study of women’s sexual health from both a psychological and physiological perspective. Dr. Meston received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of British Columbia in 1995 and completed two consecutive postdoctoral fellowships in Sexual Medicine from the University of Washington School of Medicine and from the Ford Foundation, N.Y.

Dr. Meston has received numerous international awards and accolades for her ground-breaking research on women’s sexual health. She has published over 200 peer-reviewed academic publications, and has given over 300 professional presentations both nationally and internationally on sexuality topics that span the areas of nervous system regulation of women’s sexual arousal, determinants of women’s sexual desire and motivation, drug effects on sexual response, the effects of childhood sexual abuse on adult sexual function, and the development of sexual self-views. Her book Why Women Have Sex (co-authored with Dr. David Buss) has been translated into nine languages and has received extensive media coverage.

In 2016 Meston was named one of the 100 most influential and inspirational women in the world by the BBC, London, England and in 2024 she was named the number one most highly cited scholar worldwide in Sexual Function and the second most cited scholar worldwide in Sexual Medicine by scholargps.com. She is the Past President of the largest professional society for women’s sexuality, the International Society for the Scientific Study of Women’s Sexual Health, and is an endowed Fellow of the Wayne H. Holtzman Regents Chair in Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. She has served as Committee Chair for disorders of orgasm in females at the International Consultation on Urological Diseases in official relationship with the World Health Organization, and as a consultant to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Awards for Meston’s research include an International Research Award from the Athena Institute for Women’s Wellness, a Distinguished Professor Award from the Canadian Research Foundation, the Raymond Dickson Centennial Endowed Teaching Fellowship, the Wulf H. Utian Endowed Lecturer Award from the North American Menopause Society, and the Career Service Award from the International Society for the Study of Women’s Sexual Health.