Cardiovascular Health:
Lacy Alexander, PhD
Professor, Department of Kinesiology, College of Health and Human Development
Research Statement: Lacy Alexander’s research utilizes the human cutaneous circulation to examine the underlying signaling mechanisms mediating microvascular dysfunction in diseases, as well as the influence of drug-interventions.
Meg Breuning, PhD, MPH, RD
Professor and Head, Department of Nutritional Sciences, College of Health and Human Development
Research Statement: Meg Bruening focuses on public health nutrition promotion and obesity prevention targeted to underserved, vulnerable youth and families. Major topics include food insecurity risk and resiliency factors, public health nutrition interventions, and social epidemiology/socio-environmental influences of eating behaviors including the role of friendship networks/social support for healthy eating.
Lindsay Fernandez-Rhodes, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of Biobehavioral Health, College of Health and Human Development
Research Statement: Lindsay Fernández-Rhodes focuses on Genetic, Epigenetic, and Social Epidemiology. Her interdisciplinary research seeks to (1) elucidate the complex etiology of chronic diseases, and (2) identify key drivers of health disparities in the United States, both across the life course and across generations.
Lori Francis, PhD
Professor, Department of Biobehavioral Health, College of Health and Human Development
Research Statement: Lori Francis studies sociocultural factors influencing the development of obesity in low-income and minoritized children; family-based interventions to reduce and prevent obesity and related morbidities in children; and biobehavioral, family environmental and cultural factors that influence self-regulation of energy intake and body weight in young children.
Donna Korzick, PhD
Professor, Department of Kinesiology, College of Health and Human Development
Research Statement: Donna Korzick’s research focuses on aging and cardiovascular disease risk using animal models; effects of estrogen deficiency on mitochondrial regulation of cell survival during myocardial infarction; PKC-dependent mechanism and oxidant stress.
Solim Lee, PhD
Assistant Professor, College of Nursing
Research Statement: Solim Lee’s primary interests are in cardiovascular health, self-care of chronic conditions, symptom science, and health disparities
Kristina Petersen, PhD
Associate Professor, Department of Nutritional Sciences, College of Health and Human Development
Research Statement: Kristina Petersen research studies focus on cardiovascular nutrition; diet quality as it relates to risk of CVD and diabetes; the role of foods, nutrients, bioactives and dietary patterns in the prevention of CVD and diabetes.
Catherine Ross, PhD
Professor, Department of Nutritional Sciences, College of Health & Human Development
Research Statement: Dr. Ross focuses on Vitamin A/retinoid metabolism; hepatic retinoid function and gene expression; Vitamin A in infection and immunity; Vitamin A and lung development in neonatal period
Gregory Shearer, PhD
Professor, Department of Nutritional Sciences, College of Health and Human Development
Research Statement: The consequences of over-nutrition and the stress of “western diets” related to lipid mediators and a global shift of dietary fatty acids; identifying markers of disease and better ways to prevent or manage disease.
Jennifer Williams, PhD
Associate Professor, Department of Nutritional Sciences, College of Health and Human Development
Research Statement: Behavioral (feeding practices, sleep) and individual factors that impact food intake; Responsive parenting; Clinical and community-based childhood obesity prevention interventions
Pulmonary Function:
W. Larry Kenney, PhD
Professor and Marie Underhill Noll Chair in Human Performance, Department of Kinesiology, College of Health and Human Development
Research Statement: W Larry Kenney specializes in control of human skin blood flow with an emphasis on aging, physiology and biophysics of heat exchange between humans and the environment, and thermoregulation during exercise and in extreme environments.
Stephen Piazza, PhD
Professor, Department of Kinesiology, College of Health and Human Development
Research Statement: Dr. Piazza’s research interests are in the biomechanics of joints and locomotion. Of particular interest is understanding how normal, pathological, and surgically-altered joint mechanics and muscle-tendon architecture influence the capacity of muscles to produce movement.
Hematologic Health:
Connie Rogers, PhD, MPH
Professor and Department Head, Department of Nutritional Sciences, College of Family and Consumer Sciences, University of Georgia
Research Statement: Connie Rogers is exploring the role of changes in energy balance, (i.e. obesity, exercise and dietary restriction) and various nutritional interventions on inflammatory mediators, metabolic hormones, and immune pathway in breast cancer using both animal models and human subjects.
Hannah Schreier, PhD
Associate Professor, Department of Biobehavioral Health, College of Health and Human Development
Research Statement: Hannah Schreier’s lab focuses on how experiences during childhood and adolescence (e.g., growing up in poverty; child maltreatment) influence inflammatory and metabolic markers of chronic disease risk.
Sleep Disorders:
Orfeu Buxton, PhD
Professor, Department of Biobehavioral Health, College of Health & Human Development
Research Statement: Dr. Buxton’s research primarily focuses on the causes of chronic sleep deficiency in the workplace, home, and society; the health consequences of chronic sleep deficiency, especially cardiometabolic outcomes; and the physiologic and social mechanisms by which these outcomes arise. Ongoing interdisciplinary human studies involve sleep loss, aging, and insomnia, as well as health disparities.
Anne-Marie Chang, PhD
Associate Professor, Department of Biobehavioral Health, College of Health & Human Development
Research Statement: Dr. Chang’s research involves the inter-relationships of sleep physiology and behavior, circadian rhythms, cardio-metabolic health, cognitive function and genomics.
Nikki Hill, PhD, RN, FAAN
Associate Professor, College of Nursing
Research Statement: Nikki Hill focuses on antecedents and consequences of cognitive and functional health in later life, including Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias
Ying-Ling Jao, PhD, RN, FGSA
Associate Professor, College of Nursing
Research Statement: Neurobehavioral symptoms of dementia., assessment of apathy in dementia, non-pharmacological interventions for dementia care, and physical and social environments in nursing homes.
Douglas Teti, PhD
Professor and Head, Human Development and Family Studies, College of Health & Human Development
Research Statement: Dr. Teti’s research focuses broadly on infant and early child development, and particularly socio-emotional development in early childhood, parenting competence and parenting at risk, how parenting is affected by parental mental health and contextual factors, and how parenting affects infant and child functioning.
Other Mentors:
Thomas Gould, PhD
Jean Philips Shibley Professor of Biobehavioral Health and Department Head, Department of Biobehavioral Health, College of Health and Human Development
Research Statement: Dr. Gould’s research uses genetic, pharmacological, behavioral, and molecular biological techniques to study the neurobiology of learning and memory and the effects of addiction on it, particularly in adolescence.
Abenaa Jones, PhD
Assistant Professor and Ann Atherton Hertzler Early Career Professor, Department of Human Development and Faily Studies, College of Health and Human Development
Research Statement: Abenaa Jones studies the syndemic of substance use disorders, violence, sexual risk behaviors, and HIV/STIs, as well as evaluation of structural and behavioral interventions aimed at reducing substance use and associated harms.
Danielle Rhubart, PhD
Assistant Professor of Biobehavioral Health and Demography, Department of Biobehavioral Health , College of Health and Human Development
Research Statement: Danielle Rhubart is a rural sociologist and demographer with expertise in rural population health, spatial inequality, and the structural and social determinants of health; and director of the Rural Health Disparities Lab.
Idan Shalev, PhD
Associate Professor, Department of Biobehavioral Health, College of Health and Human Development
Research Statement: Idan Shalev’s research focuses on understanding how biopsychosocial processes across the lifespan, and at multiple time scales, influence variability in systemic dysfunction, aging and disease decades later, through changes in biological aging.
Chad Shenk, PhD
Professor of Human Development and Family Studies, College of Health and Human Development, Professor of Pediatrics, College of Medicine (joint appointment)
Research Statement: Chad Shenk studies early life adversity; risk for adverse health following exposure to pediatric trauma; contamination bias in causal estimation; mechanisms involved in the onset and course of psychiatric disorders across multiple levels of analysis (e.g. biology, behavior, environment); mechanisms of action and active treatment components for behavioral interventions.
Samantha Tornello, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of Human Development and Family Studies, College of Health and Human Development
Research Statement: Samantha Tornello studies family, sexual orientation, and gender identity. The majority of her work has focused on the role of family composition and parental sexual orientation and gender in the family system.