Carolina Bejarano, PhD

Carolina Bejarano, PhD is currently a first-year NIH T32 postdoctoral fellow in Child Behavior & Nutrition at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. She earned her doctoral degree in clinical child psychology at the University of Kansas in 2021, where her research and training experiences focused on dietary behavior, health promotion, and pediatric obesity. She has consistently been driven towards an integrated approach to understanding and treating conditions of pediatric obesity and disordered eating. Her study of these areas has highlighted food insecurity as a key driver of dysregulated eating and cardiometabolic health concerns, particularly for minoritized youth. Her current interests include addressing food insecurity to promote health equity and improved health outcomes for children, adolescents, and families. As a Spanish-speaker, she aspires to use her language skills in her career trajectory to serve the unique needs of Hispanic/Latinx families. Broadly, she aims for a research path that will contribute to improved psychosocial and cardiometabolic health for children and their families on individual (i.e., addressing intraindividual dietary processes) and environmental (i.e., addressing food and nutrition security) levels.