Graduate Students & Postdoctoral Researchers
POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCHERS
Kristin Sanders, Ph.D.
Department of Psychology
Kristin's research examines the intersection of sleep, memory, and creative problem solving. In particular she is interested in how memory representations change over time and how these changes can elicit solutions to previously unsolved problems. In a recent paper, she demonstrated that reactivating memories of previously unsolved problems during sleep increased the chance of participants solving those problems the following morning.
Dr. Sander's CV HERE
GRADUATE STUDENTS
Seham Kafafi
Department of Psychology
Cognition, Brain, and Behavior Program
As we grow older, the human brain undergoes structural and functional changes. In what ways does stress-driven arousal interact with these changes? How does stress-driven arousal affect our memory and general cognition? And how does the brain prioritize goal-relevant information within our environment? Seham's research explores the cognitive and neural mechanisms of memory driven by the neuromodulatory system, responsible for stress regulation, in younger and older adults utilizing electroencephalography (EEG) and eye-tracking techniques. The motivation for her research is driven by her interest in the socio-economic implications of human longevity and age-related diseases (i.e. Alzheimer's, Parkinson's). The aging population (adults over the age of 60 years) will continue to exceed the number of young people at a global level (WHO).
Xinran Niu
Department of Psychology
Cognition, Brain, and Behavior Program
Xinran Niu is generally interested in understanding how sleep-related characteristics and cognitive factors serve as risk and protective mechanisms for internalizing symptomatology. Her research takes a multidimensional approach to studying sleep, incorporating both objective measures (e.g., polysomnography-measured microstructural features and spectral band power during REM and slow-wave sleep) and subjective assessments (e.g., self-reported sleep quality, sleep timing, and chronotype). She investigates how these sleep features relate to emotional memory, emotion regulation, and physiological stress responses in the context of depression and anxiety. Her current project examines how therapeutic strategies that target maladaptive aspects of distressing memories may interact with daytime napping to update the episodic content and emotional tone of memory, with implications for mood and anxiety disorders.
LAB MANAGER & RESEARCH ASSISTANT
Mia Utayde
Department of Psychology
Mia is interested in understanding the cognitive and affective mechanisms disrupted in anxiety and depressive disorders. She is currently working on a project examining how interactions between emotion regulation, trait anxiety, and age influence emotional memory.
GRADUATE & POSTDOCTORAL ALUM
Antonio Martinez-Tlatenchi, Ph.D.
Carissa DiPietro, , M.A.
Jovian Lam, Ph.D.
Dan Denis, Ph.D.
Chaz Rich, M.A.
Sara Kim, Ph.D.
Sara Alger, Ph.D.
Researcher, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research
Tony Cunningham, Ph.D.
Member of the Faculty of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
CV | Twitter
Enmanuelle Pardilla-Delgado, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Scholar, Familial Dementia Neuroimaging Lab,
Massachusetts General Hospital / Harvard Medical School
Stephen Mattingly, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Scholar, University of Notre Dame
Alexis Chambers, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience, North Central College