Ruth St. Fleur, PhD, is a postdoctoral research associate working with Dr. Stroud's team. Dr. St. Fleur is using advanced statistical methods to explore associations and patterns related to prenatal substance use and neurodevelopment outcomes.
After graduating with a BA in public health from Brown University, she went on to receive a PhD in prevention science and community health from the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine where she acquired extensive training in applied statistical methods. As a doctoral student, she used a wide range of longitudinal models (e.g., hierarchical linear models, two-part and parallel process latent growth models) to examine how stress management promotes resilience and physical activity in breast cancer survivors.
As a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Epidemiology at the Brown University School of Public Health, she integrated longitudinal models and clustering algorithms (i.e., latent class analysis) to identify obesity phenotypes in childhood and adolescence. Her previous work on maternal and child health leveraged longitudinal clustering algorithms (e.g., latent class growth models) to examine how patterns of change in psychosocial determinants of breastfeeding are associated with breastfeeding decisions, early pregnancy smoking status, and late pregnancy and postpartum salivary cotinine values.