Hi there, I'm Dr. Kelly Cosgrove
I'm on a mission to unlock the secrets of behavior change and help people live healthier, happier lives
I'm a behavior-change scientist, nutritional-science researcher, and professional home organizer.
Wait, what?
How does that last one fit in there?
I get puzzled looks anytime I share my answer to everyone's favorite "so what do you do?" question.
Allow me to explain. Let's start at the beginning!
Nutritional Science
For as long as I can remember, I've had an appreciation for health. It seemed like an obvious focus to me. How you feel impacts every area of your life. And unfortunately, so many people feel shitty all the time, which makes life less fun and magical. And who wants that?
I understood that what we put into our bodies has a profound effect on what we get out of life, so I decided to become a nutritional science expert. I got a bachelor's degree in dietetics and then went on to get a master's degree in human nutrition, which gave me the chance to do some original research on my own.
I developed a randomized, controlled trial to explore the effects of a dietary intervention on a few different biomarkers. It was fascinating to me, and I loved the opportunity to actually see how food affects your health in real time. How cool to be able to bring new knowledge into the world that can help people get healthier and feel better.
Brief Intermission
After graduating with my master's degree, I took a little intermission/side quest where I lived in the jungle of Costa Rica for about 3 years. I learned about local medicinal plants, plumbing, electricity, rainwater catchment, and building a house on unforgiving terrain with very little money.
A few years in, I started working remotely as an editor of health-related scientific manuscripts written by non-native-English-speaking researchers. It was the best. I got to stay up to date on current research and learn all sorts of fascinating things.
But reading tons of manuscripts all day reawakened my desire to do my own research (and was really tough on my eyes).
So I decided to move back to the states and go back to school to get a PhD and commit to a lifetime of research and learning!
Behavior Change
When I started in the Exercise and Nutritional Sciences PhD program, I had the goal of continuing a similar line of research as I started in the master's program. It was so fun to design a dietary intervention and get to record cold hard data that showed how the intervention affected (or didn't!) different health systems.
But then I had an important epiphany that dramatically changed the direction of my research (and my career!)
We already have a decent understanding of what a healthy diet should look like, and yet, most people are still not eating well.
It's pretty widely accepted that we should eat less processed food and more fruits and vegetables. But in general, people don't do it! This made me realize something very important: For a lot of people, lack of information is not what stands in the way of getting healthier.
So did I really want to dedicate my career to learning what foods and dietary patterns are best for your health?
I was convinced that this type of research would have a limited impact on most people's lives, so I decided to pivot my research focus. Instead of researching the physiological effects of diet, I decided to become a behavior-change expert. Because that's where the magic is: better habits=better health!
I started learning about how people make decisions, how habits are formed, and how to change behavior. I dove into a lot of consumer psychology research, because I realized that these people have got human behavior pretty well figured out. While nutritional scientists are creating pamphlets and educational campaigns to teach people why they should eat more fruits and vegetables, the consumer researchers with Coca Cola and Amazon are putting consumer psychology research into practice and getting people to consume tons and tons of their products.
That got me asking: why can't we use some of these same principles to change people's behavior for the better?
...Home Organization?
This is where it gets a little unusual. But in case you haven't noticed yet, that's pretty on-brand for me.
While getting my PhD, my research focused on how to change health behaviors. Eventually, I started focusing specifically on how changes to the spaces people spend time in can influence their behaviors. This seemed like a really impactful focus, because these types of environmental interventions can impact whole groups of people rather than having to focus on each person individually. And changes to your environment can rely a lot on subconscious processes that lead to behavior change rather than conscious processes that tend to require a lot more effort.
Fast forward to the last year of my PhD program. I started feeling like I didn't want to go the traditional academic route, because I wanted to feel like I was having a more direct impact on people's lives rather than conducting a bunch of cool research that might not be applied in the real world in a meaningful way.
I happened to have a chat with a friend of mine who worked as a professional organizer in Texas. Immediately it clicked.
You mean I can go into actual people's homes and rearrange their stuff?
That's an actual gold mine for a behavior-change scientist.
Do you know how many important health behavior-related decisions you make in your home and how much your home environment influences these choices without you realizing it??
And Now...
I've been working in my local area as a professional organizer where I've had the chance to work with some amazing clients and help align their homes with their goals.
Now, I'm making my unique approach and expertise available to more people by offering my services online!
Check out my one-on-one sessions, workshops, and online courses that will help you get clear on your goals, learn what habits to focus on, and optimize your home to make meeting your goals a breeze.
