DrCynthia Kroeger

Drawing on her interdisciplinary background in physiology, psychology, philosophy, and epidemiology, Dr Kroeger is interested in the ways that trust, safety, and transparency shape the scientific process, human relationships, and long-term health. Her work bridges methodological research on how knowledge is produced with empirical research on how stress and trauma become biologically embedded and contribute to mental and physical disease across the life course.

With respect to the scientific process, her research has focused on how bias, analytic flexibility, and methodological error undermine the reliability of scientific findings, and how increasing transparency through open science practices may improve the integrity of the scientific record and public trust in science. She continues to study and apply methods that reduce error and bias and enhance replicability, including preregistration of statistical analysis plans, automation of research workflows using R, and open sharing of data and code. Her work has helped elucidate common statistical errors and sources of bias in nutrition and obesity research and has contributed to broader conversations about research integrity across disciplines.

In the context of human relationships and pathophysiology, Dr Kroeger’s research examines the impact of lifetime exposure to stress and trauma on mental and physical health outcomes, including comorbidity and multimorbidity. Her recent work adopts an epidemiological lens, using large, population-based datasets to characterise patterns of exposure to potentially traumatic events and their associations with psychiatric disorders, physical health conditions, and health inequities. This population-level work complements her earlier mechanistic and clinical research on how trauma-related stress affects autonomic and metabolic function—particularly in people with obesity—and how these processes may influence responses to lifestyle and behavioural interventions.