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New lead researcher appointed to U.Va. Center for Design and Health

Jenny Roe will work to address environmental impact on physiology

<p>Jenny Roe was recently appointed lead research at the University’s Center for Design and Health. Originally from Scotland, she has worked primarily in the United Kingdom and Western Europe, and has combined her work in architecture and environmental psychology to study the effects of urban environments on the human body.</p>

Jenny Roe was recently appointed lead research at the University’s Center for Design and Health. Originally from Scotland, she has worked primarily in the United Kingdom and Western Europe, and has combined her work in architecture and environmental psychology to study the effects of urban environments on the human body.

Jenny Roe was recently appointed to lead research at the University’s Center for Design and Health.

She will also serve as the University’s inaugural Mary Irene DeShong Professor of Design and Health at the University.

Roe, originally from Scotland, has a diverse academic background. She studied English and American literature before training as a landscape architect, and a few years later attained a Ph.D. in environmental psychology.

She has worked primarily in the United Kingdom and Western Europe, and has combined her work in architecture and environmental psychology to study the effects of urban environments on the human body.

Roe came to the University to do interdisciplinary work in the field of design and health. She also came to work with great students and colleagues, she said.

“I continue to be impressed by the students I’ve met here — their energy, their enthusiasm, their engagement with my research field,” Roe said.

Interdisciplinary research in this area is important due to the health challenges the world is facing today, Roe said, issues like obesity, depression, heart disease and cancer.

“Design can help alleviate some of the symptoms of those areas and illnesses,” Roe said.

Marcia Day Childress, an associate professor of medical education, says Roe’s research and interdisciplinary work are important because they create new approaches to complex problems.

“These are real-world challenges that are so complicated that they require team approaches, the theories and practices of many different fields, and knowledgeable people who can work productively together for a common cause,” Childress said in an email statement.

While there is already exchange among the University’s faculty, Roe’s arrival will “provide a new rallying point for collaboration,” Childress said, as she will bring together students from different school.

While Roe is still working out exactly what her themes of research will be, she says one will be mental health, specifically in relation to stress.

“I’m currently trying to build a stress-environment consortium on campus, and also nationally,” Roe said.

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