My interests center around the cardiovascular system and efforts to improve cardiovascular health. My primary focus has been on the effects of job duties associated with emergency responder occupations (e.g., law enforcement and firefighters) on cardiovascular disease risk in these occupations. In the past, this work has included assessments of traditional CVD risk factors, novel risk factors (e.g., inflammatory mediators) and job demands (stress, sleep disturbances). In collaboration with Dr. Nir Keren (http://www.public.iastate.edu/~nir/) a major focus now is on the use of virtual reality environments to assess the effects of acute, occupationally-relevant stress on the cardiovascular and decision making responses in firefighters (http://youtu.be/37ehMpyIKWY).