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Evan Forman, PhD; Director
evan.forman@drexel.edu | Faculty Profile | Vita
Evan Forman received his BA from Cornell University and his PhD from the University of Rochester. He completed clinical internships and fellowships at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, the University of Pennsylvania and the Beck Institute. Currently he serves as professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences and WELL Center Director. He has interests in the development, evaluation and dissemination of innovative behavioral and technology-based interventions for health behavior change.
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Meghan Butryn, PhD; Director of Research
mlb34@drexel.edu | Faculty Profile | Vita
Meghan Butryn received her BS from Cornell University, and her PhD in clinical psychology from Drexel University. She completed her clinical internship at Brown Medical School. Currently she is a professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. Her primary research interests are innovations in behavioral approaches to obesity treatment and prevention; developing interventions for physical activity promotion; and disseminating evidence-based eating disorders prevention programs.
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Adrienne Juarascio, PhD; Director of Training
asj32@drexel.edu | Faculty Profile
Adrienne Juarascio, PhD, received her bachelor's degree from the University of Pennsylvania and her PhD in clinical psychology from Drexel University. She is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. Her research is focused on the identification of factors that maintain eating pathology (e.g. emotion dysregulation, altered reward responsivity, impulsivity) that are inadequately targeted in existing treatment approaches and the development of novel treatment approaches that can better target these maintenance factors.
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Stephanie Manasse, PhD; Director of the Child and Adolescent Program; Director of the mPOWER program
smm522@drexel.edu | Faculty Profile
Stephanie Manasse, PhD, received her bachelor's degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and her PhD in Clinical Psychology from Drexel University. She is the Director of the mPOWER program, a summer fellowship for underrepresented minority trainees who wish to pursue research careers. Her research program is centered around developing novel treatments for adolescents and adults with eating and weight disorders, with a particular focus on improving self-regulation. She also is particularly interested in discovering maintenance factors (e.g., neurocognitive, affective, sleep-related) of disordered eating behavior that can serve as novel intervention targets.
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Paakhi Srivastava, PhD; Core Faculty
ps887@drexel.edu | Faculty Profile
Paakhi Srivastava earned her PhD from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, India in Clinical Psychology. She has received postdoctoral training at the WELL Center, Drexel University. She is interested in identifying modifiable cognitive and emotional factors that maintain transdiagnostic binge eating disorders. Specifically, she is interested in understanding the role of body image disturbances in maintaining transdiagnostic binge eating. She is also interested in developing novel treatments, and treatment augmentations such as digital health technology tools to improve body image disturbances in individuals with eating disorders. Her current project involves development and examination of a smartphone application that is designed to deliver interventions to improve body dissatisfaction in real-time to individuals with transdiagnostic binge eating. Paakhi is also the Chair of Career and Professional Development Committee for the Humanities and Social Sciences for the Drexel Postdoctoral Association. She is interested in building and implementing resources for career, personal and professional development of postdoctoral fellows in the Humanities and Social Sciences field.
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Erica LaFata, PhD; Core Faculty
es3344@drexel.edu | Faculty Profile | Vita [PDF]
Erica LaFata, PhD, earned her B.A. degree in psychology from the University of Kansas and her doctoral degree in clinical psychology from the University of Michigan. LaFata completed a predoctoral internship at the Medical University of South Carolina and a two-year postdoctoral research fellowship with the Center for Weight and Eating Disorders at the University of Pennsylvania. Her program of research applies a cutting-edge perspective to understanding overeating and obesity by examining 1) which foods or food attributes (e.g., sugar) may be reinforcing in a manner that directly drives overeating, 2) whether core mechanisms of addictive disorders (e.g., withdrawal) may contribute to eating-related problems for vulnerable individuals, and 3) how food addiction may be a useful construct for individualized interventions. LaFata has investigated these empirical questions using a multi-method approach, including neuroimaging, scale development, food consumption paradigms, and self-report.
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Charlotte Hagerman, PhD; Core Faculty
cjh427@drexel.edu
Charlotte Hagerman grew up in Street, Maryland and received her B.S. in Psychology from the University of Mary Washington. In 2021, she received her PhD in Applied Social Psychology at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C, where she studied under Dr. Michelle Stock. Charlotte's research examines the social psychological influences of health behavior, with a focus on weight management. She is especially interested in research that can inform interventions to promote healthy eating and self-weighing while mitigating the harmful effects of weight stigma. In her spare time, Charlotte enjoys singing and traveling.
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Santiago Ontañón, PhD; Affiliated Faculty
santi@cs.drexel.edu | Faculty Profile
Santiago Ontañón's research focus lies in the intersection of artificial intelligence, computer games, machine learning and case-based reasoning. He has published over 90 scientific articles in these areas. Previous to joining Drexel University, he spent three years at the Georgia Institute of Technology as a postdoctoral researcher, and two years as a researcher at the Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (IIIA) in Barcelona, Spain.
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Zoe Zhang, PhD; Affiliated Faculty
fengqing.zhang@drexel.edu | Faculty Profile | Vita [PDF]
Zoe Zhang, PhD, is a statistician with interests in neuroimaging data analysis and quantitative research methods including hierarchical models, multivariate analysis, generalized linear models, data mining, and Bayesian modeling. She is particularly passionate about statistical modeling and methodological development for social, behavioral, and biomedical related problems. She obtained her PhD in Statistics at Northwestern University, and is currently a faculty member in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences.
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Dani Arigo, PhD; Affiliated Faculty
arigo@rowan.edu | Faculty Profile | Vita [PDF]
Dani Arigo received her BS from Drexel University and her PhD in clinical psychology from Syracuse University. She is a faculty member in the Department of Psychology at Rowan University and holds appointments with the Department of Family Medicine at Rowan School of Osteopathic Medicine and the Department of Biomedical Sciences at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University. The overarching goals of her research program are to better understand psychological and social influences on health behaviors such as physical activity and dietary intake, and to effectively harness these influences in digital health behavior change interventions. A critical component of this program is differentiating stable, person-level relations from those that vary within-person (e.g., at the day or moment levels). Her current work focuses on (1) understanding within-person relations between social perceptions and physical activity engagement among midlife women with elevated risk for cardiovascular disease, and (2) tailoring the social features of digital physical activity interventions to meet the needs of this population. She has worked closely with WELL Center investigators on these and related research topics since 2012.
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Deeptha Sukumar, PhD; Affiliated Faculty
ds3235@drexel.edu | Faculty Profile
Deeptha Sukumar is an Associate Professor in the Department of Nutrition Sciences. After completing her initial training in India including a Masters in Foods and Nutrition, she obtained her PhD from Rutgers University in Nutritional Biochemistry. The overarching goal of her research is to understand the interplay between bone metabolism and energy metabolism. Her research focuses on how biomarkers i.e hormones and proteins inherent to bone metabolism influence obesity, cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Her current interests are in understanding whether novel dietary interventions can influence bone-regulating hormones, body weight and composition, bone mineral density, pro-inflammatory cytokines and energy metabolism.
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Brandy-Joe Milliron, PhD; Affiliated Faculty
bm645@drexel.edu | Faculty Profile
Brandy-Joe Milliron, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Nutrition Sciences in Drexel University’s College of Nursing and Health Professions, and faculty affiliate of the Drexel Food Lab. Her research focuses on developing nutrition and wellness interventions to prevent and manage complex chronic health conditions, including cancer and end stage kidney disease. She is especially passionate about improving nutrition and health among family caregivers through interventions that enhance caregiver preparedness and encourage wellness behaviors. Using quantitative and qualitative methods, she employs a formative approach to intervention development supported by identifying beliefs, behaviors, challenges and needs of individuals and families.
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Michael Machado; Operations and Administrative Manager
mm572@drexel.edu
Michael Machado is the Operations and Administrative Manager for the WELL Center. In this role he manages the administrative, facilities, and financial aspects of the Center. He has been with Drexel, in various financial and operations roles, for a number of years.
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