Professor Spence’s research and outreach focuses on school and community-based interventions to promote healthy nutrition and physical activity environments for children and their families, youth leadership and advocacy development to improve school and community health environments, and improving food security for mothers, children, adolescents, young adults, and their families.

Spence Lab

Lifestyle interventions, designed to improve eating and activity behaviors, for obesity treatment in children and adults. Both efficacious studies, in which dietary factors, such as energy density and timing of eating, and effectiveness studies, in which lifestyle interventions are translated into practice-based settings (i.e., primary care), are focused on.  Hollie is the director of the Healthy Eating and Activity Laboratory (HEAL).

To learn more about my research, please visit: Raynor Lab

2006 PhD, The University of California Davis, Nutritional Biology

2001 MS, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Nutrition

Science

1992 BFA, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Drawing

Kavanagh Lab

Kavanagh is also the director of the Vitality Everday (THRIVE) lab.

2005 PhD, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Major: Nutrition

1998 MHS, Western Carolina, Major: Nutrition

1995 BS, Florida State University, Major: Nutrition & Food Science

1993 AA, New World School of the Arts, Major: Theater

I am a nutrition behavioral researcher who studies factors that influence what people eat and systems and environments that promote healthy behavior. I seek to better understand the intersect of food insecurity, food justice, social determinants of health, and sustainable agricultural systems. Primarily working with adolescent and young adult populations, I consider complex patterns of behavior and seek to develop, test, and evaluate the implementation of multilevel research interventions and programs focused on what we grow, cook, and market, and how to change the environment we live in for the better. I also look at creative ways to communicate, educate, and use technology to change behavior and improve health for individuals, families, and communities. Together, with my students and through research, I believe that we can make a difference in our world.