Susan Kleppner Folkman (born March 19, 1938) is an American psychologist, author, and emerita professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF).
[5] She was about to enter the PhD program at Washington University in St. Louis when her husband was offered a position in California.
The family moved to the Bay Area and Folkman entered the doctoral program in educational psychology at the University of California, Berkeley.
[7][8] After receiving her PhD, Folkman conducted community-based research with Lazarus until 1987 when Thomas J. Coates, director of the recently funded Center for AIDS Prevention Studies at the University of California, San Francisco, invited Folkman to develop a research program focusing on stress and HIV/AIDS.
[9] Folkman moved to UCSF, and in 1989, at the height of the AIDS epidemic, secured funding from the National Institutes of Health for a longitudinal study of stress and coping among the caregiving partners of men with HIV/AIDS.