Postdoctoral Fellow
Kessler Foundation
East Hanover, New Jersey
My name is Carly Wender, I have a PhD in exercise psychology, and I currentl work as an Associate Research Scientist in the Center for Neuropsychology and Neuroscience Research at Kessler Foundation in New Jersey. Beginning in graudate school, I began to pioneer a line of research combining exercise with virtual reality. Specifically, my early work demonstrated that combining exercise with virtual reality can significantly decrease exercise-induced pain in healthy college students. During my postdoctoral fellowship at Kessler Foundation, I successfully applied this technique to persons with a previous traumatic brain injury in an effort to boost the cognitive benefits of exercise. My ultimate goal is to apply this rehbailitation technique to individuals struggling with chronic pain. People with chronic pain conditions are reluctant to do any activity that might exacerbate that pain, including exercise. Despite short-and long-term benefits of regular exercise on physical and mental health, people with chronic pain conditions are typically inactive. Adding virtual reality to the exercise is hypothesized to overcome these short term barriers of exercise-induced pain and kinesiophobia (i.e., fear), allowing individuals with chronic pain to stick with an exercise intervention long enough to gain the long-term benefits. Kessle rFoundation conducts research on several populations who also experience high prevalence of chronic pain (e.g., TBI, multiple sclerosis, stroke, etc.). I look forward to continuing my work at Kessler and carving out my impact in this area.
Aside from my interest in exercise psychology and virtual reality, I am a loyal sports fan, an avid TV watcher, and a voracious puzzler. I followed the US Women's National Team to Canada and France for the last two World Cups and would probably follow them anywhere! I enjoy hiking and the outdoors, comedy podcasts, and true crime documentaries. I value myself as a leader, a hard worker, a dedicated family member and an empathetic friend.
Friday, March 10, 2023
3:30 PM – 3:50 PM East Coast USA Time