Key research questions + projects
The majority of my research at Vanderbilt and the University of North Carolina has focused on the varying connections between:
online experiences like social support, cybervictimization, digital stress, and digital entrapment
vulnerabilities for internalizing disorders like cognitive reactivity and socioevaluative concern
friendship and social variables like popularity and peer susceptibility
I am fascinated by questions around how young people, especially those with anxiety and depression, perceive themselves and each other, and how these perceptions may play out online in positive (e.g., peer support, psychoeducation) and negative ways (e.g., co-rumination, negative self-comparison).
At Headspace, I’ve been fortunate translate my research skills and interests to two research projects focused on employee wellbeing, including leading the quantitative arm of our burnout modeling and prevention project, as well as an leading an evaluation of our network-wide training on the Unified Protocol.
Publications
You can see a list of my published, peer-reviewed papers on Google Scholar.
A few recent works in process or under review include:
A book chapter reviewing the effects of online social support
Studies describing teens’ objectively-measured device and social media use using the Screen Time function on their phones, exploring demographic differences and connections with mood
A study of teen girls’ friendships, stress, and self-injurious thoughts and behaviors