The Academic Minute for 2026.02.23-2026.02.27
Monday
Lucy Loch – University of Michigan
Ultra-Processed Food Addiction in Older Adults
Lucy Loch is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Psychology at the University of Michigan, where she is mentored by Dr. Ashley Gearhardt and Dr. Julie Lumeng. Her research focuses on the life course development of addictive-like eating, examining how early experiences and exposure to ultra-processed foods influence appetite, self-regulation, and risk for later life health outcomes. Supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, Lucy bridges developmental and addiction science to uncover why certain foods and life experiences may make some individuals more susceptible to overeating. Her work has appeared in journals including Addiction, Current Obesity Reports, and Physiology & Behavior.
Tuesday
Madeline McCrary – Washington University in St. Louis
Breaking the Cycle: Hepatitis C Treatment at the Bedside for Pregnant Women
Leah Madeline McCrary is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at WashU Medicine. She specializes in infectious complications of substance use, including Hepatitis C and Serratia endocarditis, and works to expand access to treatment for people who use drugs, pregnant individuals, and rural populations. She is currently collaborating to integrate infectious disease care into perinatal substance use programs to improve Hepatitis C treatment during and after pregnancy.
Wednesday
Shannon Kay – Yale University
Differences in Asthma Between the Sexes
Shannon Kay was born in Long Island and raised in New York City. She received her B.S. and M.S. in Chemical Engineering from Manhattan College, and completed medical school at Stony Brook University School of Medicine. She then completed internship, residency, and Chief residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor before coming to Yale as a Pulmonary and Critical Care fellow in 2019.
Thursday
Sonja Wild – University of California, Davis
Juvenile Birds Learn to Solve Foraging Puzzles From Siblings
Sonja Wild is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California Davis. Her research aims to uncover the mechanisms underlying behavioral plasticity in free-ranging social animals. She is particularly interested in underlying cognitive processes — such as social learning phenomena and individual decision-making processes — and the fitness outcomes of behavioral variation at the individual level. Her research across different animal species from dolphins over songbirds to ground squirrels has sparked far-reaching interest beyond the scientific community.
Friday
Mikaela Bloomberg – University College London
Smoking Cessation, Even Later in Life, Linked to Slower Cognitive Decline
Mikaela Bloomberg is a Senior Research Fellow in Social Epidemiology and Social Statistics at University College London’s Department of Epidemiology and Public Health. She is part of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing research team, where her work examines how social and behavioural pathways contribute to inequalities in health and wellbeing in later life. Her research integrates lifecourse perspectives with longitudinal population data to understand how socioeconomic circumstances and behavioural patterns shape cognitive ageing, dementia risk, and other ageing-related outcomes.