Matthew C. Whited, PhD, FSBM

Associate Professor
The association between behavioral health (especially depression) and cardiovascular disease
252-328-6308
Fax: 252-328-6283
Rawl 228
whitedm@ecu.edu
Twitter
Do Healthy Be Healthy: an occasional podcast
Mailing Address
104 Rawl Building
Department of Psychology
East Carolina University
Greenville, NC 27858-4353

I am not taking a doctoral student for 2024-25 academic year

  • I encourage interested students to thoroughly investigate the Clinical Health Psychology concentration of the Health Psychology PhD program and to contact me with any additional questions about my lab and my work.

Education

  • Fellow in Randomized Behavioral Clinical Trials; 14th Annual Summer Institute on Randomized Behavioral RCTs (2014)
  • Post-doctoral Fellowship in Behavioral Medicine Research at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Division of Preventive and Behavioral Medicine (2012)
  • PhD, Clinical Psychology, West Virginia University (2009)
    • Internship: University of Mississippi Medical Center and G.V. Montgomery VAMC Consortium, Jackson MS.
  • MS, Clinical Psychology, West Virginia University (2007)
  • BA, Psychology (2nd major Biology), Indiana University of Pennsylvania (2003)

Service Positions

   Within The Society of Behavioral Medicine
   Other Noteworthy Service Positions

Research Interests

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the result of a combination of modifiable health behaviors, environment, and genetic makeup and takes several decades to manifest itself before an individual begins to suffer impairment from this very common class of diseases. My research interests center around the association between mental health and health behaviors that influence risk for cardiovascular disease. I am especially interested in understanding the mechanisms of the association between depression and CVD (e.g. cardiovascular psychophysiology; eating/exercise behaviors; sleep) in order to design and apply interventions to reduce CVD risk via treatment of depression and related mental health issues. The association between mental health and CVD risk is complicated and multifactorial and necessitates strong collaborations between myself and junior and senior colleagues to investigate in multiple settings (e.g. a cardiovascular and pulmonary rehabilitation program, a college campus, the surrounding community, the internet). My program of research represents my attempts to understand this association from various perspectives and approaches in order to determine the role of mental health treatment on CVD prevention.

The Cardiovascular Psychophysiology Laboratory

Our strongest current direction is focused on several investigations occurring within the cardiopulmonary rehabilitation setting. We are interested in behavioral health factors in this setting. You’ll have to contact us to hear about our latest work in this area.

We maintain a very active physical laboratory space that consists of my own graduate students, Dr. D. Erik Everhart‘s Cognitive Neuroscience laboratory, a rotating cast of undergraduate research assistants, and occasionally ECU Clinical Health Psychology graduate students from other labs. Using the equipment in this lab space, we study the influence of behavioral and psychological factors on individuals’ psychophysiological responses to stress. My graduate students and I also collaborate with researchers and treatment providers across ECU, most prominently Vidant Hospital Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Rehabilitation.

In addition to Thesis and Dissertation projects, we maintain a lab group project that is investigating mood and health behaviors among college students. This is an ongoing data collection which we modify annually based on our results and new developments in the literature at large.

Current Graduate Students

Emily Midgette is a fifth-year graduate student who earned her BA in Psychology at East Carolina University before earning her MA in Clinical Psychology. Her research interests include the relationship between sleep quality, fatigue, and health behaviors. She recently completed her Master’s thesis project investigating the momentary association between sleep quality, daytime fatigue, and adherence to a Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation program using a mobile ecological momentary assessment app. She is currently working on her dissertation project, which focuses on assessing the feasibility and acceptability of a novel, values-based telehealth intervention to promote adherence to Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation.

Alex Capiaghi is a fourth-year graduate student who received his BS in Psychology from Towson University and MA in Clinical Psychology from ECU. He previously worked as a research interventionist at Johns Hopkins University using Motivational Interviewing to promote multiple health behavior change. Alex’s primary research interest includes the relationship between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and chronic diseases. He is currently working on his dissertation project and ECU Family Medicine, where he is evaluating the effectiveness of a yearlong organizational intervention to increase ACEs screening through provider education and training. Alex has additional interests in healthcare administration and quality improvement work.

Ashlan McNinch is a third-year graduate student who earned her BA in Psychology Cum Laude from the University of South Carolina-Beaufort (USCB) in 2018. Ashlan has a clinical interest in working with severe and persistent mental illness, and a research interest in illness perception. Her thesis explores the role of illness perception in cardiovascular and pulmonary rehabilitation (CVPR) attendance; and she also hosts monthly health education classes at CVPR .  In addition to her work at CVPR, she is conducting a study investigating headache disability in college aged individuals and is helping with an NIH R01 funded study that is examining the impact of exercise modalities on maternal and infant health in overweight/obese mothers.

Kallie Maloney is a second-year graduate student who earned her BS in Psychology from Coastal Carolina University. Her research centers on the usage of digital health interventions (predominantly mobile apps) for lifestyle modification in a clinical population. Currently, she’s working in partnership with Noom to assess how their program influences blood pressure in those with elevated blood pressure or stage 1 hypertension. She’s also interested in assessing these blood pressure outcomes across various social factors (rurality, SES). 

Taylor Stallings is a second-year graduate student who earned her BS in Health Psychology from MCPHS University. She later completed a MS in Health Psychology and a Graduate Certificate in Health Education and Communication from the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia. After graduation she worked as a Clinical Research Coordinator for the University of Pennsylvania’s Palliative and Advanced Illness Research (PAIR) Center. Under the guidance of Dr. Whited and Dr. Christensen, she hopes to explore how psychology and palliative care come together to influence care for patients and caregivers of those with advanced heart, lung and kidney disease and those who need palliative care/end-of-life care services.

Rose Skelly is a first-year student in the Clinical Health Psychology program. She completed her master’s degree in clinical psychology at Ball State University in 2021, with her thesis examining anxiety sensitivity’s moderating effect on the relationship between trait anxiety and sleep dysfunction. Rose also received her bachelor’s degree from Ball State University, where she studied psychology and journalism. Before starting at ECU, Rose worked as an addictions case manager in Louisville, Kentucky, and as a newspaper journalist in Indiana. Under Dr. Whited’s supervision, she plans to continue studying the effects of transdiagnostic mechanisms such as anxiety sensitivity on health behaviors and physical health conditions.

Former Graduate Students

Dr. Taylor Freeman graduated from ECU in 2019 and currently works as a clinical psychologist with the Abdominal Transplant team at UNC Health in Chapel Hill, NC.  While working with Dr. Whited, he completed a Master’s thesis examining depressive symptoms as a predictor of participation at a local cardiac rehabilitation center, as well as a dissertation where he designed and piloted a brief intervention attempting to use values-based behavior to promote exercise behavior. He went on to complete an internship in Clinical Health Psychology at VA Connecticut Healthcare System-West Haven, and a post-doctoral fellowship in Behavioral Medicine/Primary Care-Mental Health Integration at the Durham VA Healthcare System.

Dr. Ansley Taylor Loveless (Corson) earned her Ph.D. from East Carolina University in 2019 and currently works as a clinical neuropsychologist in private practice in Franklin, TN. While working with Dr. Whited, she completed a Master’s thesis which examined the relationship between subtypes of perfectionism, BIS/BAS, and heart rate variability, as well as a dissertation that explored possible executive functioning deficits among perfectionists. Dr. Loveless went on to complete internship and a postdoctoral fellowship in clinical neuropsychology at the Veteran Affairs Medical Center in Salem, VA.

Dr. Jordan Ellis graduated from ECU in 2020 and is currently an active duty licensed clinical psychologist and Captain in the United States Air Force. Jordan is stationed at Lackland Air Force Base and works in the mental health clinic at Wilford Hall Ambulatory Medical Center, where he also completed his clinical psychology internship. He recently deployed as part of an integrated human performance team in support of Special Operations Forces in East Africa. While working with Dr. Whited, he completed his dissertation which utilized mobile ecological momentary assessment to examine the relationships between mood, stress, experiential avoidance, and program adherence in cardiopulmonary rehabilitation patients.

Dr. Ashley Griffith graduated from ECU in 2022 and currently works as a postdoctoral fellow at the Rocky Mountain MIRECC for Suicide Prevention in Aurora, CO. Ashley continues to provide clinical services as part of the Behavioral Medicine team and suicide consultation team at the Rocky Mountain Regional VA, while also engaging in research related to suicide prevention in Veterans. While working at ECU, she completed a Master’s thesis examining barriers to seeking mental health care among service members and her Quantitative Methods for the Social and Behavioral Sciences Certificate. She then completed her dissertation with Dr. Whited, where she examined how morally injurious experiences influenced mental health stigma and attitudes towards seeking mental health treatment for service members and Veterans. She went on to complete an internship at the Rocky Mountain Regional VA Medical Center in Aurora, CO.

Clinical Interests

I lead the Depression Specialty Service in the ECU psychology department’s PASS clinic. You can find more information on the PASS clinic page. I specialize in Behavioral Activation and have experience training other clinicians in this treatment approach both regionally and nationally. If you’re curious about Behavioral Activation, the treatment manual has been published and you can obtain it free of charge if you our your institution has a subscription. Additionally, you can see me discuss Behavioral Activation in the videos below under “media.”

When I have the opportunity to supervise a clinical team of graduate students, I expand my service to include exposure-based treatments for anxiety disorders, especially panic disorder and social anxiety disorder. I also increasingly bring both formal and informal mindfulness practice into treatment these days and you can listen to some guided mindfulness tracks I made to introduce and facilitate formal practice.

Grant Funding

Engagement and Outreach Scholars Academy (2017-2018)
Accepted into EOSA which includes didactic training on Engaged Scholarship leading to a scholarly product supported by a $5000 research stipend and $4500 in support for graduate and undergraduate research assistants. The final goal of the Academy is a competitive external grant application.

Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Career Development Award (K23)
NHLBI/NIMH 5K23HL109620 (PI: Whited) Depression treatment and risk for cardiovascular disease. 2012-2017

NHLBI Clinical Research Loan Repayment Program Grant. 2011-2013, 2014-2015, 2015-2016 (Awardee) Depression, heart rate variability, and risk for cardiovascular disease.

Media

Publications

Click here for a list of publications.