About Me
I am the Director of Clinical Research in Adolescent and Young Adult (AYA) Oncology and the Co-Leader of the Cancer Prevention and Control Program at the Wake Forest Baptist Comprehensive Cancer Center. I am a health psychologist by training, and my work focuses on maximizing the health-related quality of life of AYAs with cancer both during and after treatment. I do this primarily through three ways: improving measurement of patient-centered outcomes in order to “give patients a voice,” identifying factors that promote resilience and thriving, and implementing behavioral interventions to foster psychological wellbeing.
Among my NIH-funded research, I have received a K07 (CA158008) and two R01s (CA218398 & CA242849). The K07 provided focused training in state-of-the-art approaches to measurement science and led to the development of patient-reported outcome measures of psychological well-being for the NIH Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS). As part of R01 CA218398, I am continuing my measurement science work by developing and validating new measures of health-related quality of life among AYAs with cancer. Lastly, for R01 CA242849, I am conducting a randomized controlled trial of a web-based, positive emotions intervention among AYA cancer survivors to determine the optimal (i.e., efficacious) components to improve well-being.