Maria LaRusso is a developmental psychologist and interdisciplinary scholar with research that integrates perspectives and approaches from human development, psychology, health, education, and anthropology. However, her work has been most profoundly shaped by her training in Human Development, and in particular Bioecological Systems Theory which explains how development is shaped through interactions between the individual and their surrounding contexts (family, school, community, etc.) which are nested within other systems that include cultural, economic, and political factors, as well as sociohistorical circumstances and change over time.  Early in her career, she also worked as a child and family therapist and brings a clinical perspective to her research. For instance, her training in structural family therapy solidified her approach to understanding pathology and well-being as not laying within the individual, but within the interrelated “systems” that make up one’s world.

After completing a doctorate in Human Development and Psychology at Harvard University, Maria continued her training at the University of Pennsylvania and New York University with a Postdoctoral Education Research Training (PERT) Fellowship, which was created through a joint effort of the American Psychological Association and the Institute of Education Sciences to bring intervention research and experimental methods from psychology to educational settings. Her subsequent research focused on a range of social-emotional, behavioral, and risk prevention programs in schools, aiming to understand how interventions impact individuals and contexts and how individuals and contexts impact intervention delivery and success.

Maria’s more recent research is driven by the need for programs with larger, more consistent impacts and the urgent need to address significant declines in youth well-being and mental health over the past decade. In her current studies she investigates factors contributing to these declines, including research with families, schools, and pediatric physicians and studies of youth with chronic health conditions that cause brain inflammation and psychiatric symptoms (PANS/PANDAS). She is also working on new interventions that aim to reduce stress and improve well-being and mental health among adolescents, with an emphasis on children’s rights to healthy development.  In particular, she has two new studies to evaluate a pilot of a program for adolescents that bridges mindfulness-based stress reduction practices with self-care activities and social activism to advocate for changes to support both individual and collective well-being. The program is being piloted in Connecticut and Bogota, Colombia, where her research has been supported by two Fulbright awards.

Outside of work, Maria enjoys music, foreign films, reading, meditating, being in nature, and traveling (especially to Colombia and anywhere in Latin America), but most of all, she enjoys spending time with her husband (also a professor at UConn), their two daughters, and Lola, their spunky Havanese.

The New York Times recently interviewed Professor Rebecca Puhl on the new American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines on treatment for childhood obesity. Read the article here.

Associate Professor Ryan Watson was featured in an article on how state laws restricting the rights of LGBTQ+ youth are detrimental to their mental health.

Dr. Rebecca Puhl is a Professor of HDFS and Deputy Director of the UConn Rudd Center for Food Policy & Health. She joined the HDFS faculty in 2015.

Rebecca was born and raised in Ontario, Canada. She completed her BAH in psychology at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, and then moved to Connecticut in 1999 to attend Yale University where she completed her MA and PhD in clinical psychology. She completed her clinical psychology internship at the VA Connecticut Healthcare System, and then returned to Yale as research faculty in the Department of Psychology and as core faculty of the Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity (founded in 2005). In 2015, after 10 successful years at Yale, the Rudd Center joined UConn’s Institute for Collaboration on Health, Intervention, and Policy (InCHIP). UConn’s commitment to multi-disciplinary scientific collaboration and research on health and wellness provided new and ideal opportunities for the Rudd Center to further its mission and contribute to the national research reputation of the university.

Since 2001, Professor Puhl’s research has addressed weight-based stigma and discrimination. She has authored more than 175 published research articles (most with student/trainee co-authors) and 24 book chapters on topics including weight-based bullying in youth, the impact of weight stigma on emotional wellbeing and physical health, weight stigma in health care and the media, and policy strategies to reduce weight-based bullying and discrimination. As a national research expert on these topics, Dr. Puhl has testified in state legislative hearings on weight discrimination and routinely provides expertise on strategies to reduce weight stigma to national and international health organizations. She has also developed evidence-based trainings to reduce weight bias in health care that have been implemented in medical facilities across the U.S., and her work is frequently cited in the U.S. national media.

Dr. Puhl has received multiple national awards for her research, from organizations like the National Eating Disorders Coalition, the Obesity Action Coalition, and The Obesity Society who selected Dr. Puhl as the 2018 recipient of the national scientific achievement award for excellence in an established research career. In 2021 she received the national Obesity Canada Distinguished Lecturer Award, awarded annually to a researcher whose scholarship has made a significant impact in the obesity field. That same year, she was the recipient of UConn’s CLAS Faculty Excellence in Research Award in Public Scholarship, and was one of 6 UConn faculty named to the World’s Highly Cited Research list.

Rebecca lives in Cheshire, CT, with her husband and two teenage sons. When she’s not attending her boys’ basketball games, swim meets, orchestra and jazz concerts, her favorite ways to spend time are hiking, baking, photography, and collecting sea glass on the coast of Maine.

Lisa Kraimer-Rickaby, HDFS instructor at UConn Hartford, was a Distinguished Teaching Awardee at UConn Hartford for the 2021-2022 year. Congratulations Lisa!