Welcome to the ACCESS Lab at Washington University in St. Louis!
The mission of the ACCESS Lab (Advancing Clinical Care for Eating disorders with Scalable Solutions) is to design, test, and disseminate innovative solutions to address the research-practice and treatment gaps for eating disorders and other mental health problems. We harness multi-sector partnerships, including with industry, non-profit organizations, government, and other community organizations to facilitate rapid translation of research findings to real-world practice settings and communities, where findings can be applied to improve public health, reduce mental health disparities, and promote equity in access and quality of care.
Recent Lab News
- January 2025: Congratulations to Dr. Fitzsimmons-Craft who became the Treasurer of the Academy of Psychological Clinical Science (APCS), and began planning how to develop a guide for psychology professionals on the use of AI with the Mental Health Technology Advisor Committee (MHTAC)!
- November 2024: Congrats to the team on successful presentations at the 58th Annual Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies Convention in Philadelphia! Graduate student collaborator Laura D’Adamo presented in a symposium on our work developing an online platform for provider training and implementation of CBT guided self-help for eating disorders and Dr. Fitzsimmons-Craft presented in a symposium on our work harnessing state-wide partnerships and technology to expand access to care for eating disorders. These symposia were chaired by ACCESS Lab graduate student collaborators, Laura D’Adamo, Arielle Smith, and Aggie Laboe. Great job, team!
- October 2024: Congratulations to Carli Howe for presenting a poster at the 2024 Public Health at WashU Annual Conference on prevalence and presentation of eating disorders across racial and ethnic groups from our iAIM study data!
- October 2024: Congratulations to Dr. Fitzsimmons-Craft who is now Director of the mHealth Research Core (mHRC) of the Institute of Clinical and Translational Sciences at WashU! The mHRC aims to improve infrastructure for conducting mHealth-related research at WashU and also offers consultation and support to investigators working in this space at the university.
- September 2024: Welcome to our new Research Coordinator, Nathalie Gullo! Nathalie will be working on our Klingenstein-funded project, in addition to a number of other efforts in the lab.
- September 2024: After 8 years on faculty at Washington University School of Medicine in the Department of Psychiatry, Dr. Fitzsimmons-Craft officially started as an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences at WashU! She is excited for the opportunity to do more mentoring and teaching of graduate and undergraduate students while continuing her research on access to care for eating disorders.
- August 2024: Dr. Fitzsimmons-Craft was appointed to the National Eating Disorders Association Research Advisory Council.
- July 2024: Dr. Fitzsimmons-Craft received a Transformation of Mental Health Care grant from the Klingenstein Third Generation Foundation to improve access to services, prevent eating disorders, and address comorbid depression and anxiety in diverse adolescents.