About me.... (Dr. Melissa VanderKaay Tomasulo)

Hello everyone!

For my first blog, I thought that I would introduce myself and then Renee will follow...

I am currently beginning my 4th year here at SMC having moved to Vermont in August 2006 from Ohio. I earned my Bachelor's degree in Psychology with a minor in neuroscience from Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, Ohio (home of the Cleveland Browns!!!) in 1999. While at B-W, I spent 3 years working in Dr. G. Andrew Mickley's neuroscience lab and knew that my love for biology and psychology would enable me to continue my education at the graduate level. In the fall of 1999 I was accepted into a Ph.D. program in health psychology at Ohio University and thus relocated to Athens, Ohio. I was mentored by Dr. Stephen M. Patterson and it was him who introduced me to the field of health psychology (in future blogs I will elaborate on what it means to be a "health psychologist") and taught me the "ins and outs" of research and the "academic life". I moved to Vermont one month after I defended my dissertation (aka earned the Ph.D.) and began my position as an Assistant Professor of Psychology at SMC a few weeks later.

Here at SMC I teach the following courses: Physiological Psychology, the Psychology of Health and Illness, Research Methods, and an Advanced Topics course entitled: Human Psychophysiology. I also conduct reasearch investigating the effects of positive and negative health behaviors on stress-induced cardiovascular reactivity (how the cardiovascular system including the heart and blood constituents respond during stressful times). I also serve as the Chair of the Library and Instructional Materials committee and have participated in many campus activities (I will share those with you at a later time as there is so much that SMC can offer to students AND faculty).

While I am not at "work" (I should mention that my favorite quote is "choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life" and thus since taking this job I live this quote almost every day), I enjoy spending time with my husband Greg - also a psychologist - I know, our poor kids one day :), our two kitties - Halle and Maria - and of course our friends and family. I enjoy gardening (hope to plant a rose garden this summer), fitness (I just hired a personal trainer), reading (I finished the Twilight series this past spring; wow! I am for team Edward for those who know what that means), playing card and board games, spending too much time on facebook only talking to fellow faculty members about "important academic topics" of course, swimming, hiking, and exploring the great state of Vermont and New England.

For those of you who have gotten this far, thank you for reading and letting me share a little bit of me with you.

Until next time,

Prof. MVT