Dr. Christine Limbers is a professor of psychology at Baylor University, managing the Pediatric Psychology Laboratory and serving as director of the Doctor of Psychology graduate program. Her work is groundbreaking, and her published work is so influential that, for two years running, she has been included in Stanford-Elsevier’s prestigious list of the top two percent of scientists in the world, which ranks the world’s most-cited researchers for both career-long and single-year impact.
“What’s wonderful is to know that the research that’s coming out of the lab is not only having an impact on other researchers, but also in the day-to-day life of people,” Limbers said.
Hands-on experience
Limbers became interested in healthcare in high school, and during her senior year she worked in a pediatrician’s office.
“I got to see a lot of interesting cases, becoming much more aware of how doctors communicated with patients and their families,” she said. “I believe those early experiences shaped my interest in pediatric psychology, so when I applied to graduate school, I knew I wanted to pursue a doctoral degree in clinical psychology, working with children, and researching in the realm of children and families.”
After earning a bachelor’s degree at Santa Clara University, she was accepted into the Ph.D. program in clinical psychology at Texas A&M University in College Station. Her mentor there was Dr. Jim Varni, a pediatric psychologist who was housed in the School of Architecture, as his research was closely related to built environments in hospitals and healthcare settings. A fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Society of Pediatric Psychology, Varni had an important impact on Limbers, she said.
“Being able to learn from him as a graduate student was really just inspirational,” Limbers said.
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As part of her clinical Ph.D. program, Limbers was required to spend a year in an APA-accredited internship — a supervised, professional training program that’s officially approved by the American Psychological Association.
She spent a year at Duke University in North Carolina, working at the university hospital 50 to 60 hours a week in both inpatient and outpatient wards and carrying out evaluations and assessments.
“I was helping kids with pretty significant health concerns, such as cancer, epilepsy, and sickle cell disease,” she explained. “All those experiences really helped shape me and my desire to pursue a program of research focused on the health and well-being of children and their families.”
From research to action
Limbers joined the Baylor faculty in 2010, creating the Pediatric Psychology Laboratory in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience.
“One of the great things about being a researcher is that you try to answer one question but, while you’re doing that, other questions arise,” she said. “I find it’s about testing hypotheses and opening the door to ask more questions.”
The research she has been doing more recently relates to children’s healthcare and how the healthcare setting interfaces with children and their families.
“It’s been interesting because we’ve been able to demonstrate that when there’s more collaborative care between healthcare providers and families, both children and their families really benefit,” she explained. “Most of the research that I do with my graduate students has actionable, applicable findings that can be used to help improve the experience for children and their families as they interface with the healthcare setting.”
All in a day’s work
On a typical day at the Pediatric Psychology Lab, Limbers works with both graduate students and colleagues across the country. She currently supervises eight Psy.D. students and one Ph.D. student, and they’re all working on separate research projects broadly related to maternal-child health.
“The graduate students I mentor are working on their own research, but they’re also part of the lab, helping with data entry and collection on broader lab projects,” she said. “The lab is very collaborative, and that’s kind of cool because the graduate and undergraduate students get to learn from one another and eventually see how their research applies to the real world.”
Several students in the lab right now are looking at the construct of emotional eating in children and adolescents, and how that affects health. Other students are looking at models of healthcare delivery and how they affect maternal health and well-being.
“I have some students looking into maternal outcomes in kids with different chronic health conditions like autism and diabetes,” Limbers added. “One of the studies we published a few years back found that when children with autism were treated in a patient-centered medical home, which is a collaborative model of healthcare, their mothers reported significantly less depressive symptoms and parenting stress.”
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Limbers’ research also focuses on sports psychology, looking at children, adolescents, and young adults and how sports and participation in sports impact their health and well-being. As a former Division I tennis player, she noted that this is the current area of research and clinical work she is most passionate about.
“I think we have this notion that sports are always going to be positive, but what we’ve found in the lab is that it really depends on the experience the athlete has,” she said. “For example, a child could be part of a competitive sports team where the coach is overly negative, or maybe a teammate is bullying them. We have demonstrated in the lab that those experiences are associated with greater depressive symptoms in young athletes. My Ph.D. student is currently examining how emotion regulation and distress tolerance in young adult athletes can impact their ability to compete in sports.”
Limbers hypothesizes that if people better understand how to control these basic psychological skills, then it’s possible that particular interventions can be developed to better strengthen those skills and allow athletes to be stronger competitors.
“I’m looking forward to continuing the research my lab is doing in sports psychology and working clinically with some of the athletic teams here at Baylor to improve their mental performance,” she said.
Funding for the future
Limbers admits that the climate for funding has become more challenging over the last several years but explains that as a researcher and professor, grant writing is simply part of the job.
She received a grant for 2022 through 2026 for more than $1.3 million from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). “That was a really cool grant as it allowed us to train about 30 doctoral students in clinical psychology on interdisciplinary healthcare. We are following their careers and studying whether they are more likely to go into primary care settings,” she said.
“My goals for the future are simply to enhance the health and well-being of children and their families, and help athletes be better competitors,” Dr. Limbers added. “And I’m so grateful to be able to encourage the high-caliber students we have to share my enthusiasm.”
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