Welcome!

I am a social/health psychologist dedicated to developing effective, inclusive health promotion interventions.

In my work, I seek to answer one central question: How can we motivate people to engage in healthy behaviors without making them feel stressed, judged, or demoralized? I mainly conduct research in the context of weight management, and I focus on two lines of research:

• I examine people’s psychological and behavioral responses to popular weight loss interventions (e.g., dieting, using mobile health apps, physician weight counseling). Then, I develop strategies to enhance the benefits and mitigate the harms of such interventions.

• I am particularly concerned about the unintended harm of weight stigma (i.e., the social devaluation or denigration of higher-weight people), which is harmful, unjust, and linked to poor health outcomes and avoidance of healthcare. Thus, the second line of my research aims to understand and reduce the persistence of weight stigma.

In my current position at Mayo Clinic, I am working with Dr. Sean Phelan to further these lines of research and to disseminate our findings into the clinical practice.