I am currently supported by a postdoctoral fellowship in the Research on Eating and Activity for Community Health (REACH) Applied Epidemiology training program led by Dianne Neumark-Sztainer and funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the NIH (T32 HL150452).  

This fellowship provides training and experience with basic and intervention research on the spectrum of eating and weight-related health concerns among diverse youth and families. I am gaining skills pertaining to mixed-methods, ecological momentary assessment and intervention, family interventions, and community engaged research. I will use these skills to generate knowledge and culturally-tailored prevention programming for body image concerns and co-occurring psychological and behavioral health problems. My REACH mentors are Katie Loth, Jerica Berge, and Dianne Neumark-Sztainer. 

I was awarded a National Research Service Award (F31 DA051118) from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to support my dissertation research (2020 - 2022).

Body dissatisfaction disproportionately affects young women and tends to escalate during adolescence and into the transition to young adulthood. Rates of alcohol and nicotine use increase across the same developmental periods, and individuals with body dissatisfaction are at elevated risk for problematic alcohol and nicotine use. Research on pathways to alcohol and nicotine use and mechanisms underlying use among youth with body image concerns is needed to inform theory and real-time preventive interventions for substance use.

To this end, I conducted a 14-day daily diary study of young adults to illuminate mechanisms and temporal sequencing in the links between body dissatisfaction and alcohol use, nicotine vaping, and cigarette use, and identify personal and day characteristics (e.g., impulsivity, daily exercise) that moderate these links. This intensive longitudinal study design yielded rich data on body image concerns and substance use, and made it possible to address novel research questions, such as whether individuals are more likely to vape on days that they experience elevations in body dissatisfaction. 

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Hochgraf, A. K., Fosco, G. M., & Lanza, S. T. (in press). Comorbidity between body dissatisfaction and nicotine vaping among young adults in college: A daily diary study. Journal of American College Health. 

​https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2024.2346354

I received a Prevention and Methodology (PAMT) Predoctoral Fellowship funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (T32 DA017629) for 2018 - 2020.

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Supported by a grant to the Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center, the PAMT Predoctoral Fellowship provides training in substance use prevention and statistical and research methods. I focused on learning and applying time-varying effect modeling to 1) advance scientific understanding of the comorbidity between body image concerns and substance use during adolescence, and 2) illuminate changes in the timing and strength of parent-adolescent relationship quality as a protective factor for weight concerns, depressive symptoms, and self-esteem across adolescence. My prevention and methodology mentors were Dr. Greg Fosco and Dr. Stephanie Lanza.

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One of the papers I wrote during this fellowship was published in the Journal of Family Psychology and was featured in Penn State News and the Wall Street Journal:

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Hochgraf, A. K., Fosco, G. M., Lanza, S. T., & McHale, S. M. (in press). Developmental timing of parent-youth intimacy as a protective factor for adolescent adjustment problems. Journal of Family Psychology, 35(7), 916–926. https://doi.org/10.1037/fam0000864.

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Penn State News: Closeness with Dads May Play Special Role in How Kids Weather Adolescence

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Wall Street Journal: Why Children Need Nurturing Fathers

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https://pamt.psu.edu/

I received a Summer Translational Science Fellowship (TL1 TR002016) through the Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute at Penn State (2018).

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As part of this fellowship, I completed a research project in collaboration with Dr. Susan McHale that examined the consequences of weight concerns for family functioning. Specifically, I used Actor-Partner Interdependence Modeling to test the effects of adults’ weight concerns and perceptions of their spouses’ weight on marital relationship satisfaction and conflict. One of our key findings was that wives whose husbands perceived them to have overweight experienced declines in marital satisfaction and increases in conflict across one year. 

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This paper was featured in Penn State News. Click to check out the story

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Hochgraf, A. K., & McHale, S. M. (2020). Honey, do I look fat? Perceptions of spouses’ weight and weight concerns predict marital relationship quality. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 37(3), 865-884. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407519880961

I was awarded a prestigious two-year University Graduate Fellowship from Penn State that provided me with protected research time in my first and second years of graduate school (2016 - 2018). I utilized this opportunity to gain research experience in the Family Relationships Project Lab (PI: Susan McHale; Human Development and Family Studies), the Metabolic Kitchen and Children's Eating Behavior Laboratory (PI: Kathleen Keller; Nutritional Sciences), and the Center for Childhood Obesity Research (PI: Jen Savage Williams). I also completed my master's thesis, was lead author on three manuscripts, and co-author on two other manuscripts.