Research Interests:
My research aims to understand how eating behaviors, food preferences, and dietary patterns develop during infancy and early childhood. I am particularly interested in how parent-child interactions during early childhood and within mealtime contexts influence children’s self-regulatory abilities, dietary patterns, and weight outcomes. I am also interested in understanding how child characteristics may influence parents’ feeding and parenting attitudes and practices. My ultimate goal for my research is to inform family- and community-based interventions to prevent obesity and related comorbidities.
Much of my recent work focuses on the promotion of responsive feeding during infant feeding interactions, which includes understanding predictors of caregiver responsiveness and caregiver-infant interaction quality during breastfeeding, bottle-feeding, and early solid food feeding. For more information about my research and current studies, check out the Cal Poly Healthy Kids Lab website.