I work with Dr. Jean King, where our research is broadly focused on identifying and studying neurobehavioral mechanisms of mental and physical illness and developing and applying effective interventions.  Our current focus is a 9 million dollar NIH UG3/UH3 award to use machine learning to identify predictors of responders to mindfulness meditation based interventions for chronic low back pain using comprehensive biopsychosocial data, including Fitbit data.  This research initiative includes collaborators at Boston Medical Center and UMass Chan Medical School in addition to several WPI faculty.  Our prior NIH UG3/UH3 with Brown University and Harvard University used functional MRI (fMRI) to identify the neural correlates of a mindfulness-based intervention for high blood pressure as part of a stage IIa randomized clinical trial, 

I am also involved in a major interdisciplinary WPI initiative to study relationships between social media and youth mental health (and youth mental health in general) which is affiliated with the CAPES NIH P50 program project on suicide prevention at UMass Chan Medical school.  Supporting research used machine learning to develop early predictors of depression and suicidality in collaboration with WPI faculty in Computer and Data Science and clinicians at Harvard and UMass Chan.  My earlier research focused on the development and study of a transgenerational social stress based rodent model of postpartum depression/anxiety, and ongoing related clinical work explores the role of behavioral hormones, discrimination, and epigenetic changes in postpartum depression/anxiety.  We often have opportunities for students to be involved in research projects in the lab (including IQP and MQP’s) and are highly supportive of involving students in related publications.

In addition to my roles as research professor, I assist with grant proposal development as part of the Research Solutions Institute (RSI) at WPI. Related experience and expertise for this work includes several of my own grants in addition to our UG3/UH3 awards (NIH F32 Fellowship, K99/R00 Pathway to Independence, National Academies DOD Fellowship, multiple foundation supported awards) and assisting with dozens of funding proposals from WPI faculty over the years.  I have specific proposal related expertise in neuroimaging, NIH targeted proposals, animal studies, clinical trials, translational research, facilitating academic-clinical collaborations, and the coordination of large and complex multi-site initiatives.