Croff named new CIRCA principal investigator

Croff named new CIRCA principal investigator

Wednesday, January 7, 2026

Media Contact: Sara Plummer | Senior Communications Coordinator | 918-561-1282 | [email protected]

Julie Croff, Ph.D., faculty member and researcher at the Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences, has been named the new principal investigator for the Center for Integrative Research on Childhood Adversity.

CIRCA brings together scientists from across disciplines to study how Adverse Childhood Experiences, such as abuse, neglect, parental mental illness, substance use, incarceration and family instability, relate to health and development across the lifespan.

While Oklahoma reports high rates of ACEs, CIRCA's work also highlights the resilience and strength of Oklahoma families, emphasizing that these findings represent associations rather than predestination for the development of later outcomes.

Croff is taking over as principal investigator following the retirement of CIRCA co-founder, director and PI Jennifer Hays-Grudo.

Over the past decade, Croff has served in multiple roles with CIRCA, including research project leader, associate director, core director and now PI. This trajectory reflects her long-standing commitment to the center's mission and its success in cultivating leadership among its own investigators.

"As a land-grant university, our research has to make an impact in our communities. When our communities tell us what matters to them, that's where we should be focusing our efforts," Croff said. "And when they're curious about something being a potential solution, if we have the capacity to study it, we have a responsibility to do so."

Supported by a $9.5 million Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence, or COBRE, grant from the National Institutes of Health, CIRCA is midway through phase two of its program, which mentors and trains early-stage investigators and funds pilot studies.

CIRCA Program Director Rebecca Fine Stallings leads the center's strategic and operational implementation.

"I think there's a collective excitement among the CIRCA team over Dr. Croff's leadership. I know we have confidence in her," Stallings said. "I think any PI of any COBRE grant gets to shape the mission and vision in different ways. Julie is putting her stamp on it, and I think we're all excited for that."

The center's three research cores provide the infrastructure and scientific expertise needed to advance innovative, interdisciplinary research.

The Recruitment, Engagement Collection and Analysis Core facilitates participant recruitment and engagement, and quantitative and qualitative data collection, and analysis. The Biological Systems Core ​supports the collection of neuroimaging data, fluid-based biomarkers of adversity and resilience, and remote biological samples. And the Administrative Core provides strategic direction, coordination, training and mentorship across the program of research.

"These cores are there to support the research project leaders who are all early career faculty," Stallings said.

Collaboration is also key to CIRCA's success, Croff said, as project leaders interact with other researchers who are working on biological sampling or neurological measures.

"Our project leaders get to interact with experts across fields. These experts are adding value to the projects. That's really at the heart of what we do," she said. "Investigators present an idea, and we get to add measurements, team members, or techniques that are then going to help investigators with their research trajectory.'"

During phase two of the CIRCA project, Croff said the team worked to have a unified baseline of data collection so every participant in a CIRCA study answered the same questions and gave biological samples. This process created a diverse dataset for other researchers to access across different studies.

To date, CIRCA studies have collected questionnaires and biological samples from nearly 275 research participants.

"We want to expand that sample size so that it's a richer data set for investigative teams to explore. Over the next six months, I anticipate enrolling around 600 additional participants, which will allow us to answer more nuanced questions and further enrich our research," Croff said.

The team is also working on developing phase three of the CIRCA project, which would focus on strengthening the three cores and developing collaborations with researchers, letting them know of the resources available to them in the areas of participant recruitment, biological samplings, analysis and more.

"We are a one-stop shop for curious investigators," Croff said. "Bring your questions, and we will help you get the data. Work with us, and we'll help you answer your research questions in ways that meaningfully serve our communities."