HBP Alum Dr. Kristal Lyn Brown named one of VCU Alumni’s 10 Under 10
VCU Alumni’s 10 Under 10 awards program recognizes the noteworthy and distinctive achievements made by alumni who earned their first VCU degree (undergraduate, graduate or professional) within the past 10 years.
Assistant professor, Drexel University College of Nursing and Health Professions
Kristal Lyn Brown, Ph.D. (Ph.D.’20), discovered her path studying health disparities in obesity treatment when she became a coach for a girls’ step team in Nashville, Tennessee while working toward her master’s degree at Meharry Medical College. She soon realized she wasn’t just teaching step routines; she was helping the team reach their health and fitness goals; one of her mottos was “Step is life.”
That opportunity led to Brown’s involvement in a Vanderbilt University Medical Center program promoting healthy habits among adolescents and their parents. In her conversations with Black female college students assisting with the program, they repeatedly talked about the impact of stress on their health.
“They had these traditional stressors of being a college student that they were dealing with, compounded with stress that resulted from racial discrimination and microaggressions, like people assuming they were at the university because they were on some sort of sports scholarship,” Brown says.
Hearing those stories sparked Brown’s interest in the psychological and physiological factors that affect obesity treatment response for young Black women, and it brought her to the VCU School of Medicine, where she earned her Ph.D. in social and behavioral sciences and continued to expand her interest in obesity, stress and eating behaviors under the mentorship of Jessica Gokee LaRose, Ph.D.
Brown describes herself as a researcher, behavior changer, interdisciplinary health disparities scholar and storyteller. “Sometimes, as researchers, we focus heavily on numbers and quantitative data,” says Brown. “That has always been important to me — but I’ve also wondered about the story behind those numbers.”
Brown explored some of those stories in 2019 when she collaborated with artist Austin “Auz” Miles (B.F.A.’17) for the “Brown Girl Narratives” mural in Richmond’s Manchester neighborhood. The painting was inspired by Brown’s doctoral research and conversations with other young Black women about their lived experiences.
“One of my goals with that project was to share these stories, to put them in an area that is slowly gentrifying and to keep conversations going,” says Brown. “I am a scientist with a creative brain. I see the value of the intersection between art and science.”
Full article here: https://www.vcualumni.org/events/10-under-10/?fbclid=IwAR3zfG6asBVIfoHWySW56bYBd5HfOU2X2dD63T4WW0wVz0dLVC5qkyqlIJc
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