Kathryn Ross, Ph.D., M.P.H., an assistant professor in the college’s department of clinical and health psychology, has received UF’s Excellence Award for Assistant Professors for 2019. The award is one of the university’s top honors for a junior faculty member.
“Dr. Ross has developed a superb program of impactful clinical research,” said Michael G. Perri, Ph.D., dean of the College of Public Health and Health Professions. “Her empirical work is centered on the development and testing of interventions to treat or prevent obesity, and she has already built a national reputation based on her research in behavioral weight management and health promotion for adults with obesity.”
In her research, Ross emphasizes improving the long-term maintenance of weight loss and developing effective behavioral weight management interventions that can be disseminated on a public health level. She has also begun to investigate the integration of newer technology into weight management interventions as a way of lowering cost of treatment delivery and increasing intervention reach. Over the past few years, she has received $7.4 million in grant support as a principal investigator or co-investigator. She currently has an R21 award from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases aimed at identifying and characterizing high-risk periods for weight regain following initial weight loss.
Ross, who completed the UF Clinical and Translational Science Institute’s Master Mentor Program, currently serves as chair or member of committees for 11 doctoral students, 14 master’s students and one undergraduate honors student. Her students have presented 33 papers and posters at national and local conferences, and one of her mentees recently received the “Top Student Abstract Award” from the Society of Behavioral Medicine.
Her service contributions include membership on multiple departmental and college committees and leadership positions within the Society of Behavioral Medicine. She is an ad-hoc reviewer for several high impact journals, and was selected to participate in the National Institutes of Health’s Early Career Reviewer Program.
Ross received her M.P.H. with a concentration in biostatistics from the UF College of Public Health and Health Professions in 2012 and her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from PHHP in 2013.
The Excellence Award for Assistant Professors award comes with a one-time allocation of $5,000 in support of research. The award can be used to fund travel, equipment, books, graduate student stipends, and other research-related expenses.