Eric Hodges, PhD, FNP-BC, FAAN

Associate Professor

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
School of Nursing
Campus Box #7460
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7460

I am an Associate Professor in the School of the Nursing and the former Director of the Biobehavioral Lab (BBL) Core Facility at UNC School of Nursing, which specializes in addressing the interface of biological and psychosocial factors that underlie individual responses to acute and chronic illnesses. My own research focuses on the role of caregiver/infant-toddler dyadic responsiveness during feeding in the development of the young child’s self-regulation of feeding, with a primary interest in the area of early childhood obesity prevention. The goal of my work is to understand developmental trajectories in this area from infancy through toddlerhood, with more recent research into influences of this period on later childhood.

I have expertise in observational methods and co-developed the Responsiveness to Child Feeding Cues Scale, which has been used internationally. My studies have primarily involved longitudinal data and, due to their mixture of observational coding, anthropometric measurement, self-report questionnaires, and recent addition of physiologic data, are time-intensive and complex in regard to data management, coding, and analysis. My recent research efforts are directed toward interventions to enhance feeding responsiveness and self-regulation during early childhood. My initial intervention study (R21HD082707 Enhancing Caregiver-Infant Communication to Prevent Obesity) completed data collection in April 2019 and I currently have a R01 based on this work under review at NICHD. Finally, in addition to my research background, I am a certified Family Nurse Practitioner with experience in the demands of primary clinical care. This clinical background informs my thinking in the design of research studies. I have served as a research advisor for undergraduate Honors students, MSN students, doctoral students in nursing, nutrition, and medicine, and post-doctoral fellows in developmental science.