Dr. Mark Flinn researches how and why social relationships influence child health as well as complex family relationships’ effects on child development, including stress and the family.
Dr. Sarah Mire’s research seeks and understanding of child, family, and regional factors contributing to various ASD treatment choices (e.g., school-based, psychosocial and behavioral, psychotropic, etc.). She explores connections between cognition, affective responding, and behaviors related to treatment, such as choosing, pursuing, and implementing treatments. She investigates whether and how change in one domain influences change in other domains.
Dr. Markus Schafer researches adult health problems associated with childhood adversity, the association between health and social networks among older adults, the role of the physical environment in shaping older adults’ social connectedness and health, and the intersection of personal networks and religion.
Dr. Matthew Andersson studies health inequality alongside socioeconomic inequalities in mental and physical well-being as they relate to childhood, adolescent, and adulthood factors.
Dr. Jeremy Elliot Uecker examines connections between religion, family, sexual behavior, stratification, mental health, and the transition to adulthood.
Dr. Laura Upenieks researches religion and health, aging, and the life course. She Integrates life course models of health and social network analysis to better understand the relationship between religion and well-being, and on how life course inequalities shape health outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr. Matt Asare researches health disparities relating to cancer control and prevention, as well as the patient-provider relationship, cultural humility and responsiveness, and sexual education.
Dr. Kathryn Janda examines food insecurity and healthy food access, health equity, and community health promotion.
Dr. Annie Ginty appraises the neurobiology of the peripheral nervous system and cardiovascular responses to stress and their relationship with unhealthy behaviors and future disease. One of her foci is related to how the brain link psychological experiences, such as stress, with cognitive, biological, and behavioral changes that matter for health.
Dr. Wade C. Rowatt studies the role of religiousness in prejudices and sociopolitical attitudes. His other interests like in the measurement and potential benefits of humility and intellectual humility, factors that influence attitudes toward immigrants and related policies, and how art facilitates spiritual understanding or promote prosocial attitudes and behavior.
Dr. Thomas Fergus examines anxiety disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) as well as the variables that might span across psychological disorders, such as metacognitive beliefs.
Dr. Gary Elkins investigates the efficacy of hypnosis and mind-body interventions for sleep disturbances, menopause, breast cancer symptoms, pain, and stress management, in addition to the physiological and cognitive mechanisms that underlie the effects of mind-body interventions such as heart rate variability, cortisol (HPA axis), cognitive expectancies, and placebo effects.
Dr. Stacy Ryan-Pettes researches the development of adolescent substance use and comorbid externalizing behaviors, the dissemination of evidence-based treatments to community settings, the use of technology to enhance adolescent treatment outcomes, and the ethical conduct of treatment research with vulnerable populations.
