Prior Fellows

Jaclyn Maher, PH.D.

Dr. Maher is an associate professor in the department of kinesiology at UNCG. Dr. Maher’s research agenda is based on the idea that physical activity and sedentary behavior are repeat-occurrence behaviors that occur within and across days, in part, due to the changing environmental contexts within daily life. Therefore, a fundamental aspect of her research is ambulatory assessment methods (i.e., ecological momentary assessment, daily diary, accelerometers) designed to capture behavior as well as its antecedents and consequences as they occur in naturalistic settings. More specifically, Dr. Maher’s research aims to understand (1) how motivational processes within and outside of our awareness regulate our physical activity and sedentary behavior, (2) how physical activity and sedentary behavior impact psychological health and well-being, (3) how health behaviors co-occur across time and space and (4) how best to use technology to capture the dynamics of motivation, behavior, contexts, and feeling states as well as to intervene on behavior. Dr. Maher uses a lifespan developmental perspective in her work and has conducted research on the antecedents and consequences of health behaviors with participants aged 8-98 years, though her primary line of research focuses on older adults.  

Dr. Maher’s plans to use her time as a CHWH fellow to analyze and disseminate data from a recently completed daily diary study on multilevel determinants of adolescent girls’ physical activity. Further, Dr. Maher plans to use findings from that work to develop a grant application focused on examining differences in those daily determinants among racially and ethnically minoritized adolescents. 

FORGIVE AVORGBEDOR, PH.D., RN

Dr. Avorgbedor is an assistant professor at UNCG School of Nursing. Her research focuses on complications with diabetes and hypertension while pregnant. Specifically, she studies the biological, social, and psychological conditions that affect health during pregnancy and postpartum.

Dr. Avorgbedor also explores structural racism and discrimination, inflammation-related genes, and maternal and infant health outcomes.

Her plans to use her time as a CWHW fellow to conduct interdisciplinary team research to better understand the cumulative effects of neighborhood factors on the cardiovascular health of young adult women. The ultimate goal is to create prevention and intervention measures to help reduce the negative risk factors linked with cardiovascular disease.

KIERRA SATTLER, PH.D.

Dr. Kierra Sattler focuses on risk and resilience among families who live in poverty or are involved in child protective services. Her primary goal for the CWHW Fellowship program is to gain expertise in physical health resilience among mothers and children who live in poverty and to understand the risk and protective processes that promote physical health resilience.

Specifically, Dr. Sattler will focus on pregnancy and the first three years of life as a sensitive period for resilience among mothers and their young children.

JESSICA DOLLAR, PH.D.

Dr. Jessica Dollar is a Research Scientist in the Department of Kinesiology, Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology, and Faculty Fellow for the Center for Women’s Health and Wellness. Dr. Dollar began her research career as an Undergraduate Research Fellow at UNC-Greensboro in the Department of Psychology. After graduating from UNC-Greensboro, Dr. Dollar served as the Project Coordinator for a large, collaborative NSF-funded project at The Center for Developmental Science at UNC-Chapel Hill. She then attended graduate school at The Pennsylvania State University, earning her M.S. and Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Studies. Dr. Dollar also has been intricately involved in every level of the research process and has received extensive training in advanced statistical analysis.

Taking a biopsychosocial approach to development, Dr. Dollar’s research examines the role of early emotional and self-regulatory development, within the social context, on psychological and physical health outcomes from childhood through adolescence. Specifically, her research focuses on how the emotional components of reward sensitivity and self-regulation across various levels of functioning (i.e., physiological, emotional, behavioral, cognitive) impact mental health, engagement in risky health behaviors (i.e., substance use), and cardiometabolic risk for girls across early development. In addition, Dr. Dollar’s work considers how caregivers and peers serve as important contexts that influence and are influenced by these developmental trajectories.