As a personality/social psychologist with post-doctoral training in Behavioral Medicine., her research interests focus on dyadic (2-person) communication and emotion regulation within the context of chronic illness. This work has spanned a variety of methodological approaches and populations: individuals recovering from stroke and their caregiving partners, patients undergoing cancer treatment and their caregiving partners, children with gastrointestinal disorders and their parents, and patients receiving bad news from their physicians. She has a strong track-record for securing extramural funding for her work in this area, including four NIH-funded grants as Principal Investigator.