Peter Fantozzi, MA Receives Award for Excellence in Research

Peter Fantozzi, MA has been awarded The Karen and Michael Roberts Travel Award for scholarly excellence in research. The award is made possible every semester by Karen and Michael Roberts. Established in 2020 by the founding Director of the Clinical Child Psychology Program, Dr. Michael C. Roberts and his wife, Karen B. Roberts, to provide funds to support CCPP students’ travel to present research findings at a national or international conference or convention. For more than 40 years (and counting), Michael and Karen have helped shape the field of clinical child and pediatric psychology.

Our Spring recipient is Peter Fantozzi, MA. Peter has been chosen for the quality of his research and overall excellence in The Clinical Child Psychology Department. Peter's current and truly impactful project follows his research focus of leveraging new technologies to personalize support for children with chronic health conditions. Peter aims to use these tools for early detection and identify those most at risk for poor outcomes. Ultimately, he would like to develop targeted interventions that optimize this population's long-term quality of life.

Peter summarized the faculty-recognized project as follows:

Many youth with functional abdominal pain do not meet recommended physical activity guidelines. This study examined predictors of daily physical activity among 74 youth with functional abdominal pain. Biological, psychological, and social factors evaluated included fatigue, pain severity, sleep duration, and social support. Results indicated that fatigue was the only significant predictor of physical activity patterns, suggesting that fatigue may be a key risk factor for sedentary behavior in this population.