Researcher Angela Incollingo Rodriguez was home with a newborn in 2019 when, during a quiet moment, she made herself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch, took out her smartphone, and started scrolling. She remembers all of that. What she doesn’t remember is eating the sandwich. “I’d eaten the whole sandwich while I was looking at my phone and didn’t even enjoy it,” says Incollingo Rodriguez, assistant professor in the Department of Social Science and Policy Studies. “Researchers have long known that people eat more while watching television, but there is conflicting research on whether people eat more while using a smartphone. I wondered whether this distraction that I experienced while using my phone might signal a broader trend in eating behavior.” The question prompted the first study that Incollingo Rodriguez, a health psychologist and behavioral scientist, launched in her Stigma, Eating, and Endocrinology Dynamics Lab after joining the WPI faculty. Beginning in fall 2019, she and her student researchers enrolled 118 WPI student volunteers in an experiment that was disguised as taste-testing research and divided them into groups. All participants snacked while using technology and while not using technology. When using technology, some participants used smartphones, and others watched television. The paper, recently published in the journal Physiology & Behavior by Incollingo Rodriguez and co-authors Mira S. Kirschner and Lorena S. Nunes, revealed some expected results: Participants who snacked while watching television ate more than participants who ate without TV. Other results, however, were surprising: Participants who snacked while using their phones did not eat more than participants who snacked without phones. “This was a very interesting finding,” Incollingo Rodriguez says. “We know that smartphones are distracting, and we also know that when people are distracted, they eat more and their memory of eating fades, making them likely to eat more at later meals. It’s possible, though, that as people use their hands with a smartphone, their pace of eating slows. This research raises many questions about smartphones, memory, and eating.” The way and amount that people eat matters because unhealthy eating contributes to diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. Researchers estimate that an unhealthy diet accounts for 14% of deaths worldwide. Studies have also shown that eating while watching television can increase calorie intake. Smartphones and other mobile technologies are well-known distractors, and they are everywhere. About 91% of Americans own a smartphone, and about 40% of adults say they are online almost constantly. Incollingo Rodriguez, who is known for her research on weight stigma, says studying eating is important but requires some creativity. “In a lab, it’s not enough to offer people food, because they typically will not eat,” she says. “If we pitch the experiment as a taste test, however, and tell participants we want their thoughts on the food, that lowers their barriers, and they will start eating.” For the snacking research, the student volunteers were told they would be taste-testing new snacks that might be offered at the WPI campus center. Each student was placed alone in a room with two snacks.one sweet and one savory. Sweet snacks included hazelnut, fudge, and caramel M&M’s candies. Savory options included cheddar sour cream and chile limón potato chips. “We picked out the weirdest, newest flavors so that participants would believe they were participating in taste tests,” Incollingo Rodriguez says. In reality, Incollingo Rodriguez and her student researchers were weighing snacks, calculating how much the volunteers ate, and converting the weights to calories. All participants were asked to fill out questionnaires while eating the snacks, but they weren’t told the true focus of the study until the very end. Although the findings suggest that smartphone use did not drive increased eating, Incollingo Rodriguez says that does not necessarily mean smartphone use while eating is benign. “We know that when people are distracted while eating, they tend to eat more,” she says. “We did not measure how much participants remembered about what they ate, and we don’t know if their memory impacted how much they ate later in the day.” The researchers also did not examine what happens when people use smartphones like televisions, by streaming entertainment, while eating meals. For Incollingo Rodriguez, whose research was inspired by a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, many questions remain about technology’s impact on eating, human behavior, and public health. "All of these questions are especially important for children, who are learning eating habits while growing up surrounded by technology,” Incollingo Rodriguez says. “We really need more research in this arena.”

The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) has recognized two WPI faculty members as recipients of the department's Educator Award to celebrate their decade of work in upholding the department’s mission to ensure a clean environment and enhance natural resources in the state. During an event at WPI in June, the MassDEP announced the recipients of the award: Corey Denenberg Dehner, associate professor of teaching in The Global School, and Paul Mathisen, associate professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering and WPI’s director of sustainability.Dehner and Mathisen co-direct WPI’s Massachusetts Water Resource Outreach Center (WROC), a project center that allows student teams to partner with municipalities, local government agencies, and watershed organizations to work on water resource challenges. Dehner and Mathisen co-founded the center in 2015 with a goal of exposing students to the inner workings of state and local government and tackling water resource issues in Central and Eastern Massachusetts.Leaders with the MassDEP cited the pair’s work at the center as a main reason why they were selected to receive the award. The department gives the honor to recognize educators who inspire and empower students to protect the planet; who incorporate environmental themes into curriculum; and who are committed to fostering environmental awareness in the community. MassDEP leaders said the project center has exposed students to environmental challenges through work on water issues such as nitrogen reduction and emerging contaminants and has provided students with the chance to learn about careers in the environmental field.“For 50 years, MassDEP has been protecting our natural resources and working with local communities to ensure the water we drink is safe and healthy,” said MassDEP Commissioner Bonnie Heiple. “And since its founding, WPI’s Massachusetts Water Resource Outreach Center has shared this commitment to safeguarding our vital water resources. Students are gaining hands-on experience to address the many challenges facing our drinking water today, including lead, PFAS, and a changing climate. We are grateful to have partners like WROC to ensure the next generation of water specialists are well equipped to take on these challenges and maintain Massachusetts’ drinking water as some of the cleanest in the nation.”Dehner expressed gratitude for everyone at the MassDEP and for their efforts and collaboration with the WROC. “I think the award is a recognition of this effective partnership,” she said. “Through collaboration with the MassDEP, our project center is able to help WPI students understand the value of being civically engaged and the interplay between federal and state environmental agencies, local communities, industry, and organizations.” Dehner credited Andrea Briggs, deputy director of MassDEP’s central region, with helping her and Mathisen bring the evolving goals of the WROC to fruition. For example, in the spring Dehner, Mathisen, and Briggs worked with students to develop a comprehensive immersion program to intentionally and thoughtfully expose students to the breadth of water resource career opportunities and to help students understand the complex relationship between state, federal, and local governance. During a single project term, for example, students may tour a water treatment plant and a town’s stormwater infrastructure facilities, conduct hands-on activities such as water quality testing and participate in a MassDEP roundtable with employees from different water-related divisions.Also starting this spring, WROC began publishing student projects on QUBES Hub, an open educational resource site. This gives residents, organizations, and municipal officials an additional way to access the resources students develop. These materials can also be found on the WROC website. Through the center and WPI’s commitment to delivering project-based learning, students have had the opportunity to complete more than 40 projects directly with MassDEP or other sponsors, including local municipalities and the Central Massachusetts Regional Stormwater Coalition. Those projects have included creating educational campaigns to alert the public to the dangers of PFAS chemical contamination in drinking water; conducting outreach to inform private well owners about groundwater contamination; producing a manual to help cities and towns consider establishing funding mechanisms to manage the impacts of stormwater runoff; and helping the City of Worcester develop guidelines for monitoring bacteria levels in ponds and lakes. In many cases, towns and cities have chosen to partner with WPI students to help tackle important water issues that demand resources and staff beyond what they can dedicate. Mathisen said the projects give students the chance to make an impact in communities by doing hands-on work in partnership with others. The projects ...

What do parents of incoming first-year students really want to know — and what advice do they have for the Class of 2029? Hear directly from families at the First-Year Welcome Experience as they share their hopes, expectations, and words of wisdom for students starting their college journey. 💬❤️#FirstYearWelcome #CollegeAdvice #ParentVoices #WPI2029 #CampusLife

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