Caitlin Vitosky Clarke

Caitlin Vitosky Clarke serves as a Teaching Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign with appointments in the School of Information Sciences and Department of Kinesiology and Community Health, and affiliation with the Center for the Study of Global Gender Equity. Her interdisciplinary work bridges sociology of health, mental health, and physical activity with focus on exercise interventions for depression and anxiety.

She earned both her Ph.D. and B.A. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her educational background combines anthropology (BA) and kinesiology with cultural studies/sport sociology training (PhD).

Dr. Clarke's research critically examines how exercise science researchers conceptualize mental illness, participants, and the exercise-disease relationship, emphasizing the societal framing of mental health as an economic burden. She employs syndemics theory to analyze interconnected health issues in contexts ranging from clinical settings to NCAA athletics, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Her work challenges individualized self-care narratives while exploring structural determinants of health.

Her 2023-2024 publications reveal strong interdisciplinary integration across public health, sport sociology, and science studies. Key trends include applying syndemics frameworks to exercise medicine and collegiate sports, developing autoethnographic pedagogical methods for health education, and analyzing evidence selection in scientific research. These works consistently center mental health stigma, gender equity, and the sociopolitical dimensions of physical activity.

The source text indicates active teaching responsibilities across multiple departments but provides no information regarding student advising, research grants, or laboratory affiliations.