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Newsmaker: Sherry Pagoto on app to predict overeating

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  Sherry Pagoto, PhD
   

A new study to design a smartphone app alerting you when you’re about to overeat, sponsored by the 2012 UMass President’s Science and Technology Initiatives Fund, was featured Tuesday, July 2, on WBUR’s CommonHealth blog and RadioBoston show.

Sherry Pagoto, PhD, associate professor of medicine, and research collaborator Deepak Ganesan, PhD, associate professor of computer science at UMass Amherst, were awarded the $185,000 mobile health grant.

Dr. Pagoto told CommonHealth’s Carey Goldberg that as a clinical psychologist at the UMass Memorial Weight Center, she often sees patients weekly and only hears after the fact when they overindulged in their favorite foods.

“I’m not there; I can’t help them,” Pagoto said. “I’d love a mobile phone to be me, but me with you all the time.”