Resilience and Adaptation to Injury
Emotion-related psychiatric disorders, including depression and anxiety, affect a considerable portion of adults in this country and rank as many of the most burdensome diseases worldwide. In this investigation, we will follow an at-risk sample of adults in order to better understand how one key pathway, relating to how individuals process emotion, influences risk for emotion-related diseases over time. In addition, we test the role by which certain other factors, both contemporary and historical (physical health, life stress, social support, psychiatric treatment history, or childhood experiences) may increase or decrease risk via this particular pathway.

The Akron Fire Department Resilience Project
Our goal is to try to better understand the psychological and biological factors that promote resilience and stress management in Akron Fire Department (AFD) firefighters. This includes better understanding emotional responses, patterns of attention, ways of thinking, different coping behaviors like exercise or substance use, and biological factors like differences in your genomic DNA. We are also interested in understanding activities that are part of the AFD critical stress protocols.

Transition to College
This research is aimed at better modelling biological and environmental influences on risk for psychiatric disease in young adults, specifically college freshman. Most young adults do not develop disorders but adjust well to both situational and developmental changes that occur in college. However, differentiating between normative levels of distress and risk-related responses is complex and not yet well-understood. This research project is focused on identifying genetic, hormonal, cognitive, and behavioral indicators of risk for emotion-related psychiatric illness in young adults who are entering their freshman year at Kent State University.