Dr. Lara Traeger is a psychologist in the Cancer Center and the Behavioral Medicine Service at the Massachusetts General Hospital, and an Assistant Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. She is the Associate Director of the Qualitative & Mixed Methods Research Unit for the Mass General Division of Clinical Research. She received her B.A. in psychology from Duke University and her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Miami, and she completed her fellowship at the Massachusetts General Hospital.
Dr. Traeger’s work focuses on optimizing health behaviors in adults with chronic medical conditions comorbid with mental health symptoms. She currently conducts research on behavioral strategies to enhance quality of life and quality of care for adults affected by cancer. Dr. Traeger has over 100 published works, including peer-reviewed publications and book chapters. She has been the principal investigator of funded grants from the NIH/National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society, and serves on the editorial boards for peer-reviewed journals including Health Psychology, Annals of Behavioral Medicine, and Psycho-Oncology. Dr. Traeger supervises and mentors clinician scientists on the conduct of mixed methods research in medical settings.