I am a health psychologist with a focus on psychoneuroimmunology. My work explores how psychosocial experiences, particularly distress and social connections, affects health and well-being, with a focus on maternal-child health during pregnancy, the postpartum period and early childhood. A growing part of my research program focuses on providing data management and research support in the community context, to provide community agencies with the tools and means to harness their data for program evaluation and strategic growth, and ultimately to join the research conversation.

Dr. Kharah Ross is a Health Psychologist, with a specialization in maternal-child health and psychoneuroimmunology, or the study of the connections between psychosocial states (e.g. stress, close relationship quality) and immune activity. Her research encompasses three broad areas: (1) Close relationships and health, (2) Health disparities at the intersection of race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status, and (3) Understanding normative physiological activity during pregnancy, the postpartum period and early childhood. Dr. Ross was a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California - Los Angeles in Psychology (2015-2018), and with the Preterm Birth Initiative at the University of California - San Francisco (2016-2018). She then returned to her hometown, Calgary, AB, where she was an Alberta Innovates - Health Solutions and CIHR Postdoctoral Fellow (2018-2019) at the Owerko Centre in the Alberta Children's Hospital Research Institute, University of Calgary. Dr. Ross joined the Psychology program at Athabasca University in 2019. If you would like to learn more about Dr. Ross' current research program, are interested in getting involved, or are looking for research experience to apply to graduate school, please feel free to email her at kharahr@athabascau.ca. Dr. Ross also works with non-profits and community agencies on data collection and management strategies and data analysis. If you would like to talk to Dr. Ross about this work, please feel free to email her at kharahr@athabascau.ca.