Faculty Spotlight: Pamela Keel

Pamela Keel is a Distinguished Research Professor in Florida State University’s Department of Psychology, part of the College of Arts and Sciences. This year, Keel began serving as chair of the Faculty Institutional Recruitment for Sustainable Transformation Executive Steering Committee, which is funded by the National Institutes of Health and supports the diversification of the biomedical research work force by recruiting new tenure-track professors and mentoring their development as grant-funded investigators. As an NIH-funded researcher herself, one of Keel’s most notable accomplishments is identifying purging disorder, earning her recognition from the Academy for Eating Disorders with a Leadership Award in Research and induction into the Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine of Florida.

Tell us a little about your background, where you’re from and what brought you to FSU.

I earned my doctoral degree in clinical psychology at the University of Minnesota and completed my clinical internship at Duke University Medical Center in 1988, starting my first faculty position at Harvard University the same year. In 2003, I began as an associate professor at the University of Iowa before moving to FSU in 2008 as part of a cluster hire contributing to research on the biology of dysregulated behavior.

Can you break down your areas of research for us?

My research focuses on eating disorders and body image. I examine the biological and psychological factors that contribute to binge eating and purging behaviors. The findings of this research improve the recognition, treatment and prevention of eating disorders. I also study how eating disorders impact people throughout their lives in large studies with long periods of follow-up. Recent research on body image focuses on social media’s impact and has been led by students I’ve mentored.

Tell us about your time as the president of the Academy for Eating Disorders from 2013-2014.

AED is the largest global professional organization in the field, bringing diverse experts together – including those with lived experiences. During my presidency, the AED developed and disseminated medical practice guidelines, collaborated on advocacy, and led education to help individuals with eating disorders. This experience provided me with opportunities to address international audiences in places such as Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and London, U.K., connecting me to a passionate global community.

Tell us about the research that earned you the Leadership Award in Research from AED in 2019.

The award recognized my role in identifying a new eating disorder called purging disorder, which is a life-threatening illness impacting about one in 50 women worldwide. Through NIH-funded studies, I delineated purging disorder’s unique biopsychological features — differentiating purging disorder from bulimia nervosa. This contribution is equivalent to being the first person to identify and name anorexia nervosa as a mental disorder.

Over the years, my research on the epidemiology, causes, and treatment of purging disorder led to my selection as a member in the Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine of Florida in 2023.

Tell us about your research published by the International Journal of Eating Disorders in 2020 on perceptions of weight during COVID-19.

Using surveys completed by FSU students in January 2020 and again after lockdown in April 2020, we compared changes in weight and weight perception. Overall, we found that partcipants’ weights had not changed significantly. However, participants felt that they “had” gained weight and expressed an increased desire to lose weight, which are both factors heightening the risk for eating disorders.

This year, you became the chair of NIH’s FIRST Executive Steering Committee. Tell us about this role and how FESC aims to transform institutional culture.

The FESC comprises over 100 members, including the principal investigators of all NIH-funded universities and institutions working with the Faculty Institutional Recruitment for Sustainable Transformation program and NIH program officials. This $235 million agreement between NIH and funded sites requires ongoing collaboration and coordination. The NIH has identified inclusive excellence as a vital driver of innovation. FESC seeks to develop new systems for recruitment and mentorship and assist in the advancement of diverse research. As FESC chair, I lead meetings to address common objectives, strategies, challenges and develop solutions.

Do you have any exciting upcoming projects or goals you’re working towards?

I’ll be presenting an award-winning paper from NIH-funded findings at the Eating Disorders Research Society Annual Meeting in Barcelona, Spain, this September. My research team and I sought to test the impact of weight loss on binge eating severity and maintenance in bulimia nervosa and related syndromes. Results from nearly 400 women suggest that glucagon-like peptide 1 agonists — in drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy — may reduce binge eating by increasing the feeling of fullness without impacting the subjective experience of loss of control over eating.

My team will also present findings from a separate NIH-funded project, which is nearing the end of the first phase of data collection. This project follows cohorts of women and men every 10 years since its inception in 1982, tracking the trajectory of eating disorders across genders, generations and adult developmental stages.

Tell us about the three mentorship awards you earned in 2023. Why is mentorship important to you?

I earned the AED’s Leadership Award in Mentorship, FSU’s Outstanding Graduate Faculty Mentor Award, and the American Psychological Association Division 12 Society of Clinical Psychology’s Toy Caldwell-Colbert Award for Distinguished Educator in Clinical Psychology.

My passion for mentorship stems from my desire to improve the lives of others through my research and research that will be accomplished by future generations. Given the complexity of problems requiring solutions, I believe my greatest contributions will come through building the capacity of future generations.

If your students only learned one thing from you (of course, hopefully they learn much more than that), what would you hope it to be?

Success is a function of persistence. For every funded grant and published paper, there is a much longer list of unfunded applications and unpublished manuscripts that came before. Every rejection is evidence you’re striving to do something you’ve never done before. If you only stick to what you know you can do, you’ll never grow and accomplish your full potential.