معرفی
Tera Fazzino, Ph.D., serves as an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Kansas and Associate Director of the Cofrin Logan Center for Addiction Research and Treatment. She directs the Health Behavior and Technology Lab, where she conducts interdisciplinary research at the intersection of addiction, obesity, and eating disorders.
- University: University of Kansas
- School: College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
- Department: Psychology
- Position: Associate Professor
Dr. Fazzino's research focuses on reward-seeking behaviors, particularly heavy episodic drinking and binge eating, and their impact on health outcomes during critical developmental periods like adolescence and young adulthood. Her work spans multiple domains including addiction science, obesity research, and eating disorder mechanisms. She has developed innovative mobile photography-based methods for assessing alcohol use and eating experiences in real-time, contributing significantly to the field of digital health assessment.
Her most notable research contribution involves developing a data-driven, quantitative definition of hyper-palatable foods, which has been widely recognized and featured in major media outlets including Newsweek, Forbes, and NPR's Central Standard. This work won the top paper award at the Obesity Society Annual Meeting in 2019 and was published in the journal Obesity.
- Top paper award at Obesity Society Annual Meeting (2019)
- Featured in Newsweek, Forbes, and NPR's Central Standard
Dr. Fazzino has secured substantial research funding, including a $1.15 million NIH grant for a 5-year cluster-randomized trial testing behavioral activation interventions in college orientation courses. She also leads USDA-funded research on hyper-palatable foods and serves as Co-Investigator on an NSF Convergence Accelerator Grant. Her teaching portfolio includes graduate courses on addiction and biological bases of psychopathology, as well as an undergraduate course on eating and weight disorders.
She is actively involved with the KU Capoeira Club as Faculty Co-Advisor, reflecting her personal interest in this Brazilian martial art form.
