Angie LeRoy, PhD
Director and Principal Investigator
We must not avoid grief—or grieving people—but instead, learn to honor them. Grief is just a manifestation of love, and better understanding it helps us lift up those who have loved and lost.
Dr. Angie LeRoy is a behavioral health researcher and Assistant Professor at the University of North Florida, where she leads the North Florida HEAL Lab (Studying HEalth Across the Lifespan). Her research explores how grief and caregiving impact mental, physical, and spiritual health — with a particular focus on spousal loss, including both bereavement and “living bereavement,” the ongoing grief that arises when an individual begins experiencing loss while their loved one is still in their physical, earthly form, such as in dementia.
Dr. LeRoy earned her PhD in Social Psychology at the University of Houston and has held academic and research positions at Baylor University and Rice University. She continues to collaborate with Rice as an Affiliate Professor.
At the HEAL Lab, Dr. LeRoy’s work integrates self-report measures with biomarkers of immune function and parasympathetic nervous system activity to better understand how social loss affects health “under the skin.” Her team also designs and tests interventions to support people navigating these experiences.
Currently, she is leading the development of Writing to Heal, an expressive writing intervention and mobile app for spousal caregivers of individuals living with dementia. This project is supported by a National Institutes of Health K01 Career Development Award and Mednexus funding at UNF.
