DrCynthia Kroeger

Dr Cynthia Kroeger is a Research Fellow and interdisciplinary researcher at The Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use. Her expertise spans lifestyle interventions for obesity-related disease, psychiatric and trauma epidemiology, open science, and research integrity. Her current work focuses on population-level patterns of exposure to potentially traumatic events and their associations with mental and physical health outcomes, including comorbidity and multimorbidity, using nationally representative Australian survey data.

Her research also examines the impact of lifetime exposure to stress on the autonomic nervous and metabolic systems in people with obesity, as well as the role of stress reduction techniques within integrative lifestyle interventions that include intermittent fasting, diet quality, and physical activity. Across these domains, her work integrates epidemiological methods with mechanistic and behavioral perspectives to better understand how stress and trauma shape long-term health trajectories.

Her previous postdoctoral work at Indiana University Bloomington, funded by the NIH National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (F32DK107157), examined biases and common statistical errors in nutrition and obesity research. She received her PhD from the University of Illinois at Chicago in Kinesiology, Nutrition, and Rehabilitation on the Integrative Pathophysiology: Nutrition and Health Promotion track. Her doctoral research tested the effects of 12 months of alternate-day fasting versus daily calorie restriction, combined with behavioral change education, on weight loss, weight loss maintenance, cardiovascular disease risk, and self-efficacy.

Dr Kroeger is a Catalyst for the Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences (www.bitss.org/catalysts) and a Research Fellow affiliate of the Kinsey Institute (www.kinseyinstitute.org).