Early Career Faculty Recognition: Dr. Anne Ray

Since joining the University of Kentucky's College of Public Health in 2019, Dr. Anne Elizabeth Ray, Assistant Professor in the Health, Behavior, and Society department, broadly focuses on understanding and preventing high-risk substance use among adolescent and young adult populations.

More specifically, how technology can be used to adapt, improve, and extend the reach of evidenced-based programming, and how this can be drawn from dissemination and implementation science frameworks.

One of Dr. Ray’s current projects – Project FRESH – is focused on alcohol use in first-year college students. Dr. Ray’s team is building an app for students to use in their first semester that integrates content on alcohol use and risky sexual behavior and allows them to monitor their feedback over the course of the semester.

Each week in Project FRESH, students will get personalized feedback on their behaviors, based on the information they share. This project involves both students and student affairs staff on campus in the development process.

The goal of Project FRESH is to improve existing evidence-based programs for first-year college students while employing methods to bridge the ongoing gap between research and practice at the university level. Project FRESH is in its second year currently and is a 5-year, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) funded project.

Going forward, Dr. Ray’s primary focus is to continue building collaborations with colleagues in other research areas at the University of Kentucky and beyond. Furthermore, Dr. Ray wants to investigate incorporating content into prevention programming that highlights the link between alcohol use and breast cancer, which is particularly relevant for young adult women.