My research focuses on understanding how stress affects health, and examines resilience resources that allow individuals to survive, manage, and thrive despite difficult life circumstances.

 I have worked extensively with the NICHD-funded Community Child Health Network on projects aimed at understanding and addressing health disparities. I have led and contributed to projects examining predictors of birth outcomes, child development, and mental and physical health in mothers after the birth of a child.

 I also have extensive experience in multi-modal data collection in community settings. As a postdoctoral scholar, I coordinated a study of 118 mother-child pairs that involved surveys, biomarker collection, and behavioral observation. The data we collected have yielded valuable insights about predictors of child physiology, affect, and cognitive development.

 I am also interested in coping and resilience resources that allow individuals to maintain physical and mental health despite highly stressful circumstances. As a graduate student at UCLA, I published a widely-cited review of the literature on coping during pregnancy and conducted a pilot study of a mindfulness-based stress reduction intervention during pregnancy. More recently, I served as senior author on a paper examining how resilience resources moderate associations between stress and postpartum depressive symptoms.

 My lab at Dickinson College involves students in new efforts to understand stress and resilience processes in members of their own community. We have completed projects examining how coping strategies relate to mental health outcomes in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. We also recently completed data collection on a collaboration with researchers at Hope College and Luther College aimed at understanding how psychological and environmental factors shape adjustment during the first year of college in 88 roommate pairs. Check back for study findings as we work to analyze the data this semester!