Marta Stojanovic

Assistant Professor

Clinical Psychology

I am the director of the Aging, Cognition, and Exercise (ACE) lab. Please visit our lab website to learn more about our research and people.

The overarching goal of our research is to improve the health of older adults and individuals at risk of Alzheimer disease and reduce the public health burden resulting from a sedentary lifestyle.

Prospective Ph.D. students: I will NOT be reviewing applications for new PhD students for the 2027/2028 academic year.

Contact Information

marta.stojanovic@uky.edu

123 Kastle Hall

859-257-4473

Education

Ph.D., Washington University in St. Louis, 2022
B.A., University of San Diego, 2016

Research Interests

Cognitive Aging
Exercise
Alzheimer's Disease Reserach
health behavior change

Affiliations

Psychology
Clinical Psychology

Curriculum Vitae (CV)
Google Scholar
ACE Lab Website

Prospective students

If you are interested in joining the lab, please see the ACE Lab website for more information.

Undergraduate students: Please check the page again next semester for students interested in joining the lab in Spring 2027.

Graduate students: I will NOT be reviewing applications for new PhD students for the 2027/2028 academic year.

Research

At its core, our research aims to characterize cognitive and brain changes associated with both healthy and pathological aging, such as Alzheimer disease. Specifically, our lab investigates how lifestyle factors, particularly exercise, contribute to healthy aging. We employ a multi-method approach to examining these questions, including in-lab experiments, neuroscientific methods (e.g., physiological measures, neuroimaging), wearables, and ecological momentary assessment. Our work is motivated by two key questions:

Is exercise beneficial for cognitive and brain health?

Engaging in regular physical activity or exercise can reduce the risk of developing cardiovascular disease and alleviate depressive and anxiety symptoms in older adults. Additionally, exercise may improve cognitive performance and increase brain volume and connectivity. However, there is heterogeneity in the findings with respect to cognitive and brain outcomes. This line of research aims to examine potential moderators and mechanisms of the protective effects of exercising in older adults. One of our previous studies found that risk of cardiovascular disease moderates the association between exercise engagement and neuronal health.

How can we facilitate greater engagement in exercise and physical activity?

It is not only important to be able to provide recommendations on lifestyle behaviors to maintain cognitive and brain health, but also to include empirically supported information on how to engage consistently in those health behaviors. Despite multiple potential benefits of regular physical activity engagement for older adults, physical inactivity is highly prevalent. We conduct basic and translational research that provides information about mechanisms of physical activity promotion across the lifespan. For example, our research focuses on the affective response to exercise and its relation to physical activity behavior, with the goal of informing interventions that promote physical, mental, brain, and cognitive health.

Selection of ongoing and future work:

The role of sleep in the impact of exercise interventions on cognition and brain
Examining cognitive and physiological mechanisms of affective response to exercise
Affective mechanisms of the decline in physical activity in preclinical Alzheimer disease
Digital intervention aimed at optimizing the affective response to exercise and increasing engagement in physical activity

Selected Publications

Selected Publications:

Stojanovic, M., Venkatesan A., English, T., & Head, D. (2024). Affective response to daily physical activity in younger and older adults. Psychology and Aging.

Stojanovic, M., Schindler, S, Morris, J., & Head, D. (2023). Effect of exercise engagement and cardiovascular risk on neuronal injury. Alzheimer’s & Dementia.

Stojanovic, M., Babulal, G., & Head, D. (2023). Determinants of physical activity engagement in older adults. Journal of Behavioral Medicine.

Stojanovic, M., Baker, B., Urbina, R., Gray, M., & Kiselica, A. (2025). Enhancing Interpretation of Cognitive Changes in Behavioral Intervention Trials: Application of Standardized Regression-Based Change Scores. Archives of Neuropsychology.

Stojanovic, M., Millar P., McKay, N., Aschenbrenner, A., Balota, D., Hassenstab, J., Benzinger, T., Morris, J., & Ances, B. (2025). The associations between attentional control, episodic memory, and Alzheimer disease biomarkers of tau and neurodegeneration. Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.