Postdoctoral Fellow
University of California Irvine
Research Areas:
- Attachment relationships
- Adversity/stress
- Resilience
- Health
Research Summary:
Dr. Kazmierski received her Ph.D. in Psychology, Clinical Science from the University of Southern California and joined UC Irvine as a post-doctoral fellow in Dr. Uma Rao’s Biobehavioral Research on Adolescent Development (BRoAD) Lab in August 2019. She was awarded the NIH NIMHD Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Individual Postdoctoral Fellowship to study parent-child relationships as sources of resilience from the health effects of adolescent stress, with a focus on the impact of discrimination-related stress on obesity-related health. Kelly received her B.A. in Psychology from Pomona College in 2012 and her M.A. in Clinical Science from USC in 2014; she completed her clinical internship in health services psychology at the VA West Los Angeles Medical Center. Kelly’s research measures how attachment relationships foster both emotional and physiological regulation in the face of stress. Her work focuses on how parent-child and romantic relationships might break links between exposure to adversity in childhood and adverse health-related outcomes in adolescence and adulthood.