Photo credit: Laura Christine Decks
THE TEAM
Teresa HortonLab Founder and Principal Investigator
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Education and Early Work. Dr. Horton received her Bachelor of Science degree in Zoology from the University of Washington (Seattle, WA) in 1979. After university she was a summer intern at the Max Planck Institute of Behavioral Physiology (MPIV) in Bavaria in what was then West Germany where she trained with Dr. Klaus Hoffmann and Jürgen Aschoff, leaders in the field of circadian rhythms and photoperiodism. She began graduate school in 1979 at the University of Utah, receiving her PhD in Biology (Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology) in 1984. Her dissertation “Variability in Responses to Photoperiod by the Vole, Microtus montanus,” made the ground-breaking discovery that female voles transmit information about seasonal changes in day length to their fetuses which influences age of sexual maturation of the offspring.
Dr. Horton's early work contributed to the increasing awareness of the impact of the environment on prenatal and postnatal development and the concept of phenotypic plasticity. Recognizing that to understand the impact of maternal physiology on development of young, she needed to know more about endocrine mechanisms that influence development, Dr. Horton then pursued postdoctoral training with Dr. Neena Schwartz (Northwestern University) in reproductive endocrinology and Dr. Milton Stetson (University of Delaware) in comparative endocrinology. Subsequent work showed that the hormone melatonin produced by the maternal pineal gland was responsible for programming fetal responses to photoperiod. Her interests in the neuroendocrine mechanisms by which animals adapt to changing environments laid the foundation for her current research on the impact of the built and natural environment on human health and well-being. |
Current Position: Dr. Horton is an Associate Professor of Research in the Department of Anthropology at Northwestern University where she is affiliated with the Evolutionary and Ecological Approaches to Health and Development research group. Prior to joining the Anthropology Department, Dr. Horton was a faculty member in the Department of Neurobiology and Physiology and the Program in Biological Sciences at Northwestern University.
Dr. Horton is the founder and chairperson of the steering committee of the Nature, Culture, and Human Health Network. She is also a member of the Science Advisory Committee for the Illinois Chapter of The Nature Conservancy.
Current Research Interests: Dr. Horton is an environmental physiologist and human biologist. She seeks to understand how exposures to our natural, social, and built environments influence human health and well-being. She uses the principles of anthropology, behavioral endocrinology, ecology, evolution, neuroscience, and physiology to investigate the mechanisms by which humans adapt to their environment. Because increasing numbers of humans live in urban areas, experience the chronic stresses of urban life, and suffer the diseases of chronic stress, she uses biomarkers and psychological assessments to test the hypothesis that access to natural landscapes contributes to improved health, well-being, and resilience of humans by offering an escape from the social, structural, and chemical stressors of urban life. Recent work examines the intersectionality of environmental equity and demographic factors with climate change and access to green space on individual and community resilience. Dr. Horton is committed to community-engaged research and employs community-based participatory research (CBPR) in many projects.
Dr. Horton is the founder and chairperson of the steering committee of the Nature, Culture, and Human Health Network. She is also a member of the Science Advisory Committee for the Illinois Chapter of The Nature Conservancy.
Current Research Interests: Dr. Horton is an environmental physiologist and human biologist. She seeks to understand how exposures to our natural, social, and built environments influence human health and well-being. She uses the principles of anthropology, behavioral endocrinology, ecology, evolution, neuroscience, and physiology to investigate the mechanisms by which humans adapt to their environment. Because increasing numbers of humans live in urban areas, experience the chronic stresses of urban life, and suffer the diseases of chronic stress, she uses biomarkers and psychological assessments to test the hypothesis that access to natural landscapes contributes to improved health, well-being, and resilience of humans by offering an escape from the social, structural, and chemical stressors of urban life. Recent work examines the intersectionality of environmental equity and demographic factors with climate change and access to green space on individual and community resilience. Dr. Horton is committed to community-engaged research and employs community-based participatory research (CBPR) in many projects.
Laura DerksDirector of NCH2
Laura is compelled by the impact time outside and doing different activities outside has on mental health, stress in the body, and perceived stress. She would love to understand these questions in the context of different kinds of nature; nearby nature in a park down the street, a local forest preserve or prairie, the shoreline of Lake Michigan, etc.
Stacy CaeiroUndergraduate Research Assistant '25
Stacy volunteers with the Cities Project, an initiative that pairs university students with CPS middle-school students in low-income neighborhoods to provide mentorship and promote social-emotional learning skills. Through this, she has developed an interest in understanding how racial and class identity can impact people’s mental health outcomes and developing strategies to help improve health outcomes for marginalized populations. Thus, she is excited to be a part of HRG because she gets to utilize data analytics to interpret and communicate the relationship between access to green spaces and health outcomes.
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Abby KisickiResearch Coordinator
Abby received her B.S. in Statistics and Community and Environmental Sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2021. During her time at UW-Madison, she worked on studies exploring behavioral healthcare providers’ experiences transitioning to tele-healthcare during the COVID-19 pandemic and clinical researchers’ attitudes surrounding recruitment of participants from underrepresented populations.
Abby is interested in how various social or neighborhood factors — such as race, ability, or perceived safety — influence how people can get benefits from different nature spaces. She is also interested in the study of green spaces as prevention of community violence and negative health outcomes, especially in the long-term. Sarah LyonsUndergraduate Research Assistant '26
Sarah is interested in how humans relate to the natural world, and how healthy environmental conditions are essential to the well-being of all species. Exploring the importance of human connections with nature and how we can benefit from a healthy environment can help us value the well-being of our planet, which is an essential part of addressing environmental issues facing our society today. Sarah enjoys research that blends both social and natural sciences in order to find out how environmental issues can be addressed in the most equitable way possible, and enjoy learning about the importance that sustainable innovations and supporting the natural world hold in our everyday lives.
Kevin FoleyUndergraduate Research Assistant '24
Kevin is an undergraduate majoring in Gender & Sexuality Studies and minoring in Environmental Policy & Culture and French. He works as an undergraduate research assistant for the Horton Research Group where he's worked on components of several projects, including GROW, the Health Benefits of Nature Survey and StAND Neighborhood Cohesion. Kevin's research interests lie in the social and ecological benefits of accessible green spaces.
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Julianna PerezPost-doctoral Fellow
Julianna Perez received a Bachelor of Arts in anthropology and Bachelor of Science in Psychology from the University of Texas at Austin. She then received a Master of Science in Biomedical Anthropology from Binghamton University. In 2021, she received her PhD in biological anthropology and a master’s in public health from Northwestern University. She recently completed a postdoc at the Northwestern University Minority Health and Health Disparities Research Training Program. Dr. Perez has worked as a lecturer for the anthropology department at DePaul University and Sociology Department at Loyola University. She is a post-doctoral scholar at HRG assisting with lab specimen analysis, training undergraduate researchers, and carrying out study protocols for WONDER. Dr. Perez conducts analysis of laboratory specimens for C-Reactive Protein, cortisol, and vitamin D. Additionally, she has conducted work on teaching health equity.
Jad DarwicheUndergraduate Research Assistant '24
Currently, Jad is researching the bidirectional relationship between mental health factors and people's time spent in nature. He has presented on this work professionally at the 2023 SHIFT Summit in Bend, Oregon. In general, he is interested in researching and analyzing the intersection of nature and human health.
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