Congratulations to Dr. Jenna Cummings, who successfully defended her dissertation!

This past Friday, Jenna (who is the last of our trio of grad students who will be leaving us this year) officially became Dr. Jenna Cummings! She successfully defended her dissertation, titled “Leveraging Rewards to Reduce Health-Compromising Behavior”, earning her Ph.D.

Here’s what she had to say: “I’m not going to lie…I felt some butterflies in my stomach right before my defense! However, as soon as I started talking through my first slide, I realized I was in a room with my dream team of stellar researchers (Dr. Lara Ray, Dr. Jennifer Silvers, Dr. Adriana Galvan, & Dr. T, of course!) who were all there to support me. I really enjoyed sharing my findings and ideas with them, and I am so grateful for their valuable feedback! I am also so grateful for the tremendous professional support I received from all involved in the many stages of my dissertation and the tremendous social support I received from my loved ones! Dissertations certainly take a village. Congratulations to my DiSH lab sisters who also defended this quarter; in the words of Elle Woods, ‘We did it!'”

This is a huge milestone in Dr. Cummings’ career, and we are all incredibly proud to call her one of our own! She accepted a post-doctoral position at the University of Michigan, where she will be working with Dr. Ashley Gearhardt. We wish her the best and can’t want to see what she does in the future!