Our Mission
The overall mission of the Physical Activity and Women's Health Lab (PAWH) is to better understand the determinants and health effects of modifiable lifestyle behaviors (e.g., sedentary behavior, physical activity, sleep) to inform behavioral interventions to improve health outcomes in at-risk populations, including pregnant and postpartum populations, children, rural populations, and marginalized groups.
Recent News
May 2025 - Dr. Alex Crisp received the Pregnancy and Postpartum Special Interest Group Award for the best trainee abstract at the 2025 American College of Sports Medicine conference. Congratulations Alex!
May 2025 - A total of 8 Pregnancy 24/7 abstracts were presented at the 2025 American College of Sports Medicine conference in Atlanta, GA.
April 2025 - Dr. Kara Whitaker received the University of Iowa Mid-Career Faculty Scholar Award! See the link to the article here.
April 2025 - Congratulations to Dr. Lisa VanWiel for successfully defending her dissertation! Her work examining the associations of urinary incontinence and cardiovascular disease is highlighted in an IowaNow article, found here.
March 2025 - Dr. Kara Whitaker, Jaemyung Kim, and Lisa VanWiel presented their research findings at the American Heart Association conference in New Orleans!
September 2024 - Dr. Kara Whitaker served as guest-editor of a special issue topic in the Journal of Sport and Health Sciences on Physical Activity Epidemiology and published an editorial titled "Measurement, associations, patterns, and promotion: unveiling vital areas in physical activity epidemiology." See here to access the full issue.
June 2024 - Congratulations to Postdoctoral Researcher Jacob Gallagher for securing a NIH-NHLBI funded 2-year diversity supplement to the Pregnancy 24/7 Offspring Study!
March 2024 - Jackie Dziewior Borrowman successfully defended her dissertation! Her work was highlighted by CLAS in this article.
March 2024 - Postdoctoral Researcher Jacob Gallagher won the three-minute rapid fire oral abstract presentation competition at the AHA|Epi Lifestyles conference in Chicago. Congratulations Jacob!
November 2023 - A new pediatric play lab opened as part of the Child Life and Therapeutic Recreation Program and was featured here. Ongoing research in this space includes Dr. Whitaker's Pregnancy 24/7 Offspring Study.
September 2023 - Congratulations to PhD Student JP Marrero-Rivera at the University of Pittsburgh for receiving a Diversity Supplement through the NIH-NHLBI to add cognitive assessments in 24-month old children in the ongoing Offspring Study.
April 2023 - Dr. Whitaker and her team were awarded a R01 grant from the National Institutes of Health to study associations of sedentary behavior, physical activity, and sleep in pregnancy with offspring growth and cardiovascular health in a 5-year multi-site observational cohort study called the Offspring Study.
January 2023 - Jackie Dziewior was awarded an American Heart Association Predoctoral Fellowship for her dissertation project, titled "Remote postpartum intervention targeting movement behaviors after hypertensive disorders of pregnancy." Congratulations Jackie!
Check out our research highlights!
Research highlights created by Megan Melia, Carissa Zaun, Airiana Mohr, Maya Kanso, and Kennedy Ilein.