Family and Consumer Sciences
Department #3354
1000 E. University Ave.
Laramie, WY 82071
Phone: (307) 766-4145
Email: fam-consci@uwyo.edu
Dating back nearly a decade, my research portfolio has focused on how non-physiological systems - brain based hedonic behaviors - alter the physiological motivation to eat and weight regulation homeostasis before obesity onset.
Over my career, I have shown sugar sweetened beverage intake is a reciprocal risk
factor for excess weight gain through increased hedonic brain activity, decreased
endocrine regulation, and decreased satiety. In adolescents, pubertal development
appears to accelerate hedonic brain response to a reward, and subsequently shifts
from
the reward receipt to the cue predicting the reward.
I am currently developing a model to test how pubertal development increases reward-related behaviors using non-invasive eye tracking. I hypothesize that insulin resistance during puberty is the underlying accelerating factor. My work has been recognized at the national Obesity Society meeting and international Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior meeting.
Ph.D. Nutritional Science, University of Texas at Austin, 2016.
B.S.F.C. Family and Consumer Sciences (Human Nutrition and Food Pre-Medicine Career Track) and B.S. Human Physiology, University of Wyoming, 2012.
To learn more, please visit my research lab's website:
Family and Consumer Sciences
Department #3354
1000 E. University Ave.
Laramie, WY 82071
Phone: (307) 766-4145
Email: fam-consci@uwyo.edu