Center for Digital Health

Deanna Kaplan, PhD, is an NHLBI-funded F32 postdoctoral research fellow at the Brown University School of Public Health and the Alpert Medical School of Brown University. Dr. Kaplan’s research integrates a variety of wearable ambulatory assessment methods to examine health-relevant processes outside of the lab, as people go about their typical daily lives. By combining subjective, behavioral, and physiological real-world assessments, her research examines new approaches to clinical interventions that account for people’s momentary states as well as the ongoing impacts of their environmental contexts and social relationships. Currently, she is working closely with Drs. Nicole Nugent, Shira Dunsiger, and Wen-Chih Wu on a project that applies this methodological approach to patients undergoing cardiac rehabilitation. 

Dr. Kaplan earned her PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Arizona in 2020. During her graduate career, Dr. Kaplan co-developed the current version of the Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR), an ecological behavioral observation method for the study of real-world social interactions, under the supervision of her advisor Dr. Matthias Mehl and in collaboration with other members of the NOSI lab. Her graduate research focused on the development and extension of the EAR method for the study of clinical interventions, including mind-body interventions such as meditation. Dr. Kaplan’s dissertation research was funded by a P.E.O. Scholar Award from the Philanthropic Educational Organization. Prior to entering her PhD program, Dr. Kaplan worked as a research specialist conducting rural health needs assessments throughout Arizona. She holds an M.A. in Educational Psychology from the University of Arizona and a B.A. with honors from Emerson College.