Dr. Jennifer Roberts is an associate professor in the Department of Kinesiology. Her scholarship focuses on the impact of built, social, and natural environments, including the institutional and structural inequities of these environments, on the public health outcomes of marginalized communities. More specifically, much of her research explores the dynamic relationship between environmental, social, and cultural determinants of physical activity and using empirical evidence of this relationship to infer complex health outcome patterns and disparities among adults and children.

Within the School of Public Health, Roberts founded laboratory programs such as the Public Health Outcomes and Effects of the Built Environment (PHOEBE) Laboratory, as well as NatureRx@UMD, an initiative that emphasizes the green space benefits throughout campus and acknowledges the ancestral lands of the Piscataway People and the slave trade legacies here on campus.  Roberts has received research and professional development grants from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as well as intramural grants from UMD. She is also a Harvard University JPB Environmental Health Fellow. When she isn’t working, you can find her curled up with a good documentary or enjoying the great outdoors.