Recent News:

• Ella Sharpe is working on her senior honors thesis on disordered eating patterns across three generations of women (Fall 2025).
• Lauren Wash passed her comprehensive area paper (comps) titled “Proposing an Integrated Theoretical Framework for Understanding the Etiology of Body Dissatisfaction in Older Black Women” (September 2025).
• Iman McPherson presented a poster titled “Parental Pressures: Relationships with Eating Pathology, Anxiety, and Depression in South Asian Adults” at the Annual Meeting of the Eating Disorders Research Society in Newport Beach, CA. Undergrad RAs co-authors on this project are: Ella Sharpe, Henry Lee, Chelsea Young, Cecilia Ha, and Charlotte Wilkerson (September 2025).
• Dr. Bardone-Cone gave an invited talk titled “Social Media: Body-Based and Disordered Eating Behaviors” as part of the sociocultural plenary at the International Conference on Eating Disorders in San Antonio, TX (May 2025).
• Dr. Bardone-Cone presented a paper titled “Appearance Pressures in Relation to Disordered Eating Attitudes in South Asians Living in the U.S.” at the International Conference on Eating Disorders in San Antonio, TX (May 2025).
• Jordan Hillard, former lab member, presented her honors thesis titled “Exploring Body Dissatisfaction and Disordered Eating in South Asian and White Women” at the International Conference on Eating Disorders in San Antonio, TX (May 2025).
• Adrienne Kvaka presented a paper titled “Media Pressure and Disordered Eating in Middle-Aged Women: The Roles of Stress and Body Appreciation” at the International Conference on Eating Disorders in San Antonio, TX (May 2025).
• Iman McPherson presented a talk titled “Investigating the Neurocognitive Profile of Adults with Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder” as part of a panel titled “Prioritizing Longitudinal Perspectives on Neuropsychological Functioning Across Eating Disorders” at the International Conference on Eating Disorders in San Antonio, TX (May 2025).
• Melisa Puopolo presented a paper titled “Who Engages in Body Checking? Examining Models of Risk with Self-Compassion as a Protective Factor” at the International Conference on Eating Disorders in San Antonio, TX (May 2025).
• Lauren Wash presented a poster titled “Skin Tone Satisfaction and Surveillance in Relation to Disordered Eating among South Asian Women” at the International Conference on Eating Disorders in San Antonio, TX (May 2025).
• Ella Sharpe’s PSYC 395 literature review paper titled “Impact of the Family System on the Development of Disordered Eating” was published in UNC JOURney (Journal of Undergraduate Research) (February 2025).
• Lauren Wash presented her master’s thesis titled “Examining the Role of Body Shame in the Relationship Between Multidimensional Perfectionism and Eating Disorder Symptoms in Black College Women” as a poster presentation at the Eating Disorders Research Society (EDRS) Annual Meeting in Sitges, Spain (September 2024).
• Emily Walsh completed her predoctoral internship at Maimonides Medical Center, a community mental health center in Brooklyn, New York, with a training focus on identity-affirming care through the center’s LGBTQ+ clinic (July 2024).
• Ale Miller defended her dissertation titled “General and Sport-Specific Risk Factors of Disordered Eating and Negative Affect among Female Aesthetic Athletes” (May 2024).
• Emily Walsh defended her dissertation, titled “Exploration of the Relationships Between Body Dissatisfaction and Sexual Experiences in a Diverse Sample of Adults: A Critical Theory-Guided, Multi-Method Approach” (May 2024).
• Lauren Wash defended her master’s thesis titled “Examining the Role of Body Shame in the Relationship Between Multidimensional Perfectionism and Eating Disorder Symptoms in Black College Women” (May 2024).
• Camilla Feeley defended her honors thesis titled “The Impact of Weight Pressures from Coaches on Female Aesthetic Athletes’ Thin-Ideal Internalization” which used data from Ale Miller’s dissertation study (May 2024).
• Jordan Hillard defended her honors thesis titled “Exploring Body Dissatisfaction and Disordered Eating in South Asian and White Women” which used data from the lab’s South Asian Body Image Study (SABI) (May 2024). 
• Dr. Bardone-Cone was selected as a Thorp Faculty Engaged Scholar, which is a 2-year experience supporting engaged scholarship (2023-2025). 

Our lab is strongly committed to promoting diversity and considers an ideal scientific community to be one that includes a diverse representation of individuals at all academic levels. We are committed to training students and scientists of diverse backgrounds and conducting research that addresses topics related to diversity. We encourage students from backgrounds historically underrepresented to apply to our lab, including but not limited to BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and first-generation college students.