Taynara Formagini, PhD, MSc
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Kaiser Permanente Southern California

Research Project: Adapting a Text-Messaging Lifestyle Program to Promote Cardiovascular Health in Latino Families

Institutional Mentor: Karen J. Coleman, PhD
SBM Mentor: Danielle Arigo, PhD, FSBM

"I am honored to receive the 2025 SBM Bridging the Gap Award. This award provides me with the opportunity to advance my research by developing an intervention to better support Latino families in pursuing healthier lifestyle behaviors to improve cardiovascular health. I am deeply grateful for this support, which will allow me to take important steps toward securing external funding and, ultimately, advancing equitable cardiovascular health for Latino communities."

Chelsey McGill, PhD
Postdoctoral Research Fellow 
Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center

Research Project: Determining Acceptability and Feasibility of a Novel Mobile Health Intervention (PRISM) to Increase Colorectal Cancer Screening Knowledge in Young Adult African American (AA) Men

Institutional Mentor: Oxana Palesh, PhD, MPH
SBM Mentor: Candyce Kroenke, ScD, MPH, FSB

"This award is not only a recognition of my work, but also of the communities, mentors, and colleagues who have walked alongside me. Receiving this award strengthens my resolve to continue bridging research with action, and science with service."

Brenna Mossman, PhD
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Kaiser Permanente Southern California

Research Project: Supporting Care Coordination in Early-Onset Colorectal Cancer: Assessing Caregiver and Healthcare Team Member Experiences to Inform an Intervention

Institutional Mentor: Claire C. Conley, PhD; Nina S Kadan-Lottick, MD, MSPH
SBM Mentor: Christine Vinci, PhD, FSBM

"I'm honored to receive the Bridging the Gap Award and will use these funds to support my work improving care coordination for patients with cancer and their families. I'm grateful for this valuable opportunity and SBM's support for this line of work!"

Yuliana Soto, PhD
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Kaiser Permanente Southern California

Research Project: Disentangling Cognitive and Emotional Self-Regulation Mechanisms Among Adolescents: A Mechanistic Study of the RESPIRA+ Mindful Movement Program

Institutional Mentor: David X. Marquez, PhD; Eduardo E. Bustamante, PhD
SBM Mentor: Paul W. Branscum, PhD, RD, FAAHB, FSBM

"This award will allow me to pilot RESPIRA+, a culturally tailored mindful movement program for Latina adolescents. More than funding, it represents recognition that Latina youth deserve programs designed with them in mind. I am deeply grateful to SBM for supporting and believing in this work, and for helping me take the next step in advancing research that bridges health gaps and promotes youth well-being."

Adati Tarfa, PharmD, MS, PhD
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Yale University

Research Project: AI-Informed Coordination Between Community Pharmacies and Recovery Housing for Medication for Opioid Use Disorder (MOUD) Care Coordination

Institutional Mentor: Sandra Springer, MD; Amy Mericle, PhD
SBM Mentor: Lorraine R. Buis, PhD, MSI, FSBM

"Since joining SBM in 2018, I have benefited in many ways, from receiving the Service Delivery Award as a student to presenting research, participating in mentoring programs, and serving in leadership roles. Receiving this research award as a postdoc to further pharmacy at the intersection of HIV and substance use disorder is an incredible honor and a meaningful part of my journey with SBM."

Astrid Zamora, PhD
Postdoctoral Scholar
Stanford University School of Medicine

Research Project: PODER (Pollutants, Diet, and Exercise Research) for Older Latino/a Adults: Formative Research to Guide a Culturally Relevant Community-Engaged Multi-Level Obesity Intervention

Institutional Mentor: Abby C. King, PhD, FSBM
SBM Mentor: Siobhan M. Phillips, PhD, MPH, FSBM

"The SBM Bridging the Gap Research Award is an incredible honor that will allow me to collect formative data using qualitative and community-engaged research methods to guide a culturally responsive, multi-level obesity intervention for older Latino/a adults disproportionately affected by health disparities. This award will strengthen my expertise in behavioral medicine, generate key preliminary findings, and directly support future NIH and AHA career development award applications. I am honored to receive this award and grateful for SBM'’'s commitment to supporting diverse populations and early-career researchers working to advance health equity."

Madison Stout, PhD
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Richard L. Roudebush VA Medical Center

Research Project: Loneliness in Veterans: Evaluating Prevalence, Effectiveness of Current Care, and Acceptability of Research Methods

Institutional Mentor: Alan McGuire, PhD, HSPP
SBM Mentor: Ranak Trivedi, PhD, FSBM

My proposed study aims to better understand loneliness in Veterans and how effective our current mental health treatments are in reducing loneliness. Specifically, I aim to 1. Describe the scope of loneliness in the VA treatment-seeking population, 2. Assess the effectiveness of CBT, as delivered in VA, for reducing loneliness in Veterans, and 3. Assess the acceptability of the survey materials to be used in the larger project. These data will be used to inform a career development award aimed at developing a loneliness program suitable for Veterans both with and without mental health diagnoses. This award provides a great opportunity to improve my research skills and receive mentorship from experts in the field like Dr. Trivedi. I am very thankful to SBM for supporting my project and my goal of becoming an independent investigator.

Kelsey Day, PhD, MPH
Postdoctoral Research Associate
University of Virginia School of Medicine

Research Project: Rural Parks and Recreation Leaders’ Perspectives on Health Promotion Partnerships with Churches

Institutional Mentors: Rebecca A. Krukowski, PhD, and Jamie Zoellner, PhD, RD
SBM Mentor: Sara Knight, PhD, FSBM

My research project seeks to understand the factors that may influence the success of partnerships to promote physical activity between rural Parks and Recreation departments and rural churches. Specifically, I will conduct a qualitative study of leaders from rural Appalachian Parks and Recreation departments that will aim to: 1) establish partnerships with rural Parks departments; 2) identify rural Parks’ leaders primary challenges, opportunities, and needs for delivering physical activity programming that reaches all community residents; and 3) discuss the viability of partnerships with local churches to deliver programming.

Collecting and analyzing this qualitative data will provide crucial information on rural community Parks’ leaders priorities, as well as their perceptions of the viability of church partnerships to deliver expanded physical activity programs. These insights will be critical to the successful development of a multilevel, community-engaged participatory intervention to promote physical activity in rural communities and will directly support a future grant application to the American Cancer Society. The support from this award will also enable me to develop essential research and grant writing skills as I transition to an independent investigator.

I am honored to receive the Bridging the Gap Research Award, and I am very grateful to SBM for the opportunity and for supporting this research.

Cathy Slavik, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
University of Oregon

Research Project: Health Maps as Behavioral Interventions: Bridging Psychological Distance of Environmental Justice

Institutional Mentors: Alex Segrè Cohen, PhD, and Ellen Peters, PhD
SBM Mentor: Sara Wilcox, PhD, FSBM

My research project will investigate how the visual display of environmental hazards using geographic maps, and the psychological distance from such hazards, affects citizens’ understanding of health inequities and motivates changes to health behaviors. Specifically, I’ll be experimentally testing different map-based communications to investigate whether (i) narrative information and (ii) environmental injustices occurring more proximally compared to distally impact the adoption of actions to reduce personal and community exposures to environmental health risks and individuals’ comprehension of those risks.

This award will go towards generating pilot data that will be used to develop a map-based environmental health education tool. It will also equip me with essential research skills as I embark on my journey as an early career investigator and help set me up to apply for additional research funding to implement and evaluate a larger-scale behavioral intervention.

It’s an honor to receive the Bridging the Gap Research Award. I would like to thank the SBM for this opportunity to further develop my expertise and skills as a scientist and for supporting research that aims to tackle health inequities and environmental injustices.

Kristina L. Tatum, PsyD, MS
Postdoctoral Fellow
Virginia Commonwealth University

Research Project: A Mixed Methods Approach to Understanding the Link between Social Drivers of Health and Quality of Life among Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Survivors

Institutional Mentors: Jessica LaRose PhD, FSBM, and Melanie Bean, PhD
SBM Mentor: Jennifer Ford, PhD, FSBM

My proposed study aims to explore the impact of social drivers of health on health-related quality of life outcomes among AYA cancer survivors, as well as protective factors, using a mixed methods approach. The SBM Bridging the Gap Research Award will yield critical preliminary data for a subsequent application to develop and iteratively pilot test a strength-based behavioral intervention to improve health-related quality of life and promote health equity for Black and Latinx AYA cancer survivors.

Jessica Rivera Rivera, PhD, MPH
Postdoctoral Fellow in Behavioral Oncology T32 Program,
Moffitt Cancer Center

Research Project: eHealth Genetic Education for Younger Colorectal Cancer Patients

Institutional Mentor: Susan Vadaparampil, PhD
SBM Mentor: Kate Wolin, ScD

My research project proposes an alternative approach to address existing disparities in genetic services by expediting the genetic testing process and facilitating guideline-concordant genetic care to early-onset colorectal cancer patients. In this project we partnered with Nest --a novel, interactive, customizable eHealth platform-- to create and refine a pretest genetic education tool for early-onset colorectal cancer patients from diverse racial/ethnic backgrounds. This project will lay the foundation for a larger study that will test the eHealth genetic education tool in a randomized controlled trial among early-onset colorectal cancer patients.

The SBM Bridging the Gap Research Award will support my work by funding a pilot study that will evaluate and adapt the eHealth pre-test genetic education tool based on patients’ and providers’ attitudes on comprehension, self-efficacy, attraction, cultural-linguistic acceptability and usability of the intervention. The expertise of my SBM Mentor, Dr. Kate Wolin, and the preliminary data obtained from this study will support my future grant applications addressing disparities in genetic services that are targeted to new investigators from the National Cancer Institute and American Cancer Society.

As a Bridging the Gap Research Awardee, I hope to take advantage of the opportunities offered by this program and demonstrate my ability to successfully lead a funded study.

Maricarmen Vizcaino, PhD, E-RYT
Postdoctoral Fellow
Arizona State University

Research Project: The Development of a Plant-Based Diet T2D Intervention for Hispanics

Institutional Mentor: Christopher Wharton, PhD
SBM Mentor: Valerie Myers, PhD

The major goal of my project is to develop a plant-based diet type 2 diabetes (T2D) prevention intervention that is evidence-based and culturally adapted for US Hispanics. My first step will be to conduct an exploration of the cultural elements, perceived barriers, and environmental constraints that may facilitate and/or hinder the adoption of plant-based diets among Hispanic adults at risk for developing T2D via in-depth face-to-face interviews. My second step will be to develop and empirically test a theoretical model that can guide a future plant-based diet T2D prevention intervention for US Hispanics using structural equation modeling.

This award offers me the unique opportunity to simultaneously collect pilot data for my first large grant proposal, expand my research skills, and contribute to our understanding of the optimal approach to develop behavioral interventions that are culturally sensitive and innovative for today’s Hispanic population that is both bilingual and educated like never before. I am hoping that the data I will be able to generate take a step closer towards the elimination of assumptions that we sometimes have as researchers (for example, that Hispanic interventions should only be in Spanish and adapted for a low-literacy level) and impede the progress of behavioral science.

I am honored to have been granted this award. I would like to thank Dr. Sharon Manne and SBM for this incredibly opportunity that supports people like me. Because of my national background, I have experienced many more barriers in my academic path compared to my fellow colleagues. I hope awards like this one is the first of many more to come for future generations of behavioral scientists that have the talent, the passion, and the commitment to make a difference.