Sherry L. Pagoto PhD

Dr. Sherry Pagoto is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Preventive and Behavioral Medicine in the Department of Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. She is co-founder of the UMass Center for mHealth and Social Media. She is also a licensed clinical psychologist and expert in behavioral counseling for obesity. Her research is focused on leveraging digital health in the treatment of obesity and cancer prevention. She has published 115 papers on these topics in top journals including JAMA, New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA Internal Medicine, JAMA Dermatology, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, American Journal of Preventive Medicine and others. She has also published a book called, Psychological Comorbidities of Physical Illness (Springer, 2011). Dr. Pagoto's work has been federally funded for 12 years and currently holds grants from the NIH, CDC, the UMass President’s Science and Technology Fund, and the UMass Office of Global Health. She teaches graduate courses in Team Science and Behavioral Randomized Clinical Trials, and co-leads the K Award Writing Group for junior investigators. Dr. Pagoto is on the Board of Directors of the Society of Behavioral Medicine (SBM) and Chairs the SBM Civic and Public Engagement Committee. She has earned several awards including the Obesity Society Pioneer in mHealth/eHealth Award in 2014, SBM Early Career/Young Investigator Award in 2006, the SBM Distinguished Service Award in 2009, and the Western Michigan University Distinguished Alumni Award in 2011. She is a social media expert with over 8.7K followers on Twitter and two blogs on the psychology of weight loss, FUdiet.com and Shrink on Psychology Today. She travels nationally and internationally to speak about how social media may revolutionize health and science. Please click here for a list of her appearances