At Massachusetts General Hospital I worked as a senior research assistant on numerous research projects studying various topics including: the effectiveness of outreach to indigent children and their families, eating disorders, child abuse, couples and family therapy, competencies in psychiatry, and psychiatry and the media. On these projects I was responsible for administrative tasks, literature reviews, data collection, data entry and analysis and manuscript preparation. I also worked as project coordinator on a research project investigating the effects of nutrition on behavior, attendance and academic performance in elementary school children.

At George Mason University I worked at he Human Emotions Research Lab (HERL) for three years. There, under the supervision of Dr. June Tangney, I recently completed a study examining religion and spirituality among inmates incarcerated at a local jail. This data was presented at the most recent American Psychological Association’s annual conference and am in the process of preparing a manuscript for publication based on this work. I am also interested in investigating the use of mindfulness programs with incarcerated populations and am currently working with a team at HERL to develop such a program.

My current research is investigating secular and religious coping by mothers of children with cancer. I am conducting this study for my doctoral dissertation work.