Biography:
Laurel is a fourth year doctoral student in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at CU. Her research interests lie at the intersection of social and health psychology, and are broadly focused on how our social experiences shape our physical health and health behavior. Her primary line of research, which is supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, explores how social stigma influences the health risk behaviors of sexual minorities. A second line of research focuses on exercise promotion, specifically, understanding affective and motivational factors that drive exercise engagement. Ultimately, she would like to move the impact of her research beyond academia and into the community at large through interventions designed to foster resilience, promote and maintain healthy behaviors, and reduce health disparities among marginalized communities.