Commitment to Personal Values

Living according to our values or things that are important to us is a critical piece of building a life worth living. I recognize and respect that everyone in the lab has their own values and that they can change and evolve as we grow. Something that I encourage every lab member to do is consider what they personally value in their life and how they can set up their career goals to match those values. My goal is for my lab members to help build a satisfying and personally meaningful career path. Don't get me wrong, every job or career includes aspects that we don't always love or maybe even value - and in my opinion, a successful career path will include more of what you value than what you don't.

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Collegiality

In graduate school, I benefitted from working in a lab that was filled with kind, supportive, and collaborative lab mates. Those relationships are ones I still cherish today and made the often exhausting and stressful experience of grad school SO much more enjoyable and manageable!  While everyone works differently, I would not be able to thrive in a cutthroat research environment that fosters competition. Thus, ensuring that my lab and lab members also value collegiality is incredibly important to me. While I want my lab members to always strive to better themselves and grow, individuals who thrive on competitition over collaboration will not be a great fit in the lab.

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Openness & Flexibility

Undergraduate and graduate school is a time of immersive growth and also can be incredibly overwhelming and anxiety-provoking (hello, imposter syndrome?). It is important to me that students are open to opportunities for professional and personal growth during school and while in the lab. This includes, but is not limited to, being open to learning and acquiring new skills and new ways of doing things, recognizing that we don't know everything, being respectful of others with different ideas and willingness to accept that we might be wrong (or right).

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Diversity, Equity, Inclusion

Diversity, equity, and inclusion are critical to all aspects of the ACCEPT Lab, from the type of research we conduct, the way we relate to one another in the lab, and our involvement in our community and beyond. Our lab vlaues diversity in the broadst sense, including diversity of age, color, disability status, sexual orientation, ethnicity, race, gender identity or expression, family and marital status, socioeconomic status or background, religion, nationality, and the intersection of these unique identities. The eating disorder field has been stymied by stereotypes that eating and body-image related problems only affect young, wealthy, white, cisgender, heterosexual women. We know better - eating disorders do not discriminate. While many of the projects in the lab focus directly on trying to increase inclusivity in eating disorder and body image research, I want to strive to encourage lab members to reflect on how they can incorporate and consider issues of diversity in our research and clinical efforts more broadly. in my experience, representation from individuals with diverse perspectives and backgrounds contributes to a better team and, ultimately, better science!