Lab director, Sofiya Alhassan, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Kinesiology at University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She completed her doctoral training at Auburn University in the area of Kinesiology and her postdoctoral training at Stanford University School of Medicine in cardiovascular disease prevention with an emphasize in community-base pediatric obesity prevention. Alhassan has research experience in the area of community-based physical activity interventions and physical activity assessment in low socioeconomic ethnic-minority children and preadolescents. Some of her past research studies involved 1) testing a policy base physical activity intervention in Latino preschool-age children and 2) examining the impact of an after-school afro-centric dance intervention to prevent excessive weight gain among low-income pre-adolescent African-American girls. Her research is funded by NIH and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (Active Living Research). She is a fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine.
Education
- Post-doctoral Fellowship, Stanford School of Medicine, 2007
- PhD., Auburn University, 2004
- M.S., Auburn University, 2000
- B.S., Stetson University, 1996
Research Interest
- Family-based physical activity interventions
- Physical activity policy-base intervention in preschool-age children
- Environmental and media influence on various health behaviors in ethnic-minority populations
Affiliations
- American College of Sport Medicine
- American Heart Association
- Society of Behavioral Medicine
- The Obesity Society
- African-American Collaborative Research Network
