Nisha C. Gottfredson, PhD

Dr. Gottfredson is an assistant professor in the Department of Health Behavior and a faculty affiliate at the UNC Center for Developmental Science. She also holds an adjunct faculty position with the UNC Department of Psychology & Neuroscience.

Dr. Gottfredson extends and applies quantitative methods to study problems related to health and health behavior. Her primary interest is in the use of longitudinal data analysis techniques to study how developmental processes unfold over time with applications to substance use and dependence, eating behaviors and eating disorders, and other psychological and behavioral outcomes.

Representative Courses

HBEH 761: General Linear Models, Mediation, and Moderation with Applications to Health Behavior

HBEH 762: Multilevel Modeling with Applications to Health Behavior

Research Activities

Dr. Gottfredson currently collaborates on several research projects with colleagues in the Departments of Maternal and Child Health, Health Behavior, Psychology, Psychiatry and Journalism. Contact her for information on currently funded projects.

Key Publications

Effects of tobacco on affect and craving during opioid addiction and recovery: An ecological momentary assessment study. Rhodes, B.E.* & Gottfredson, N.C. Addictive Behaviors, [* indicates student author].

Developmental premorbid body mass index trajectories of adolescents with eating disorders. Yilmaz, Z., Gottfredson, N.C., Zerwas, S., Bulik, C., & Micali, N. (2019). Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 58( ), 191-99, [First two authors contributed equally].

A straightforward approach for coping with unreliability of person means when parsing within-person and between-person effects in longitudinal studies. Gottfredson NC (2019). Addict Behav, 94( ), 156-61, PMCID: PMC6435441.

Education

PhD, Psychology (Quantitative), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2011

MA, Psychology (Quantitative), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2008

BA, Psychology and Mathematics, Pitzer College, Claremont Colleges, CA, 2006