Our Mentors | Mentoring Aspiring Graduate students and building an Inclusive Community (MAGIC)

Gerry Altmann

Faculty in Psychological Sciences; Language & Cognition
Interests: Sentence processing, event cognition, object representation

Mary Anne Amalaradjou

Faculty in Animal Science; Food Microbiology
Interests: Probiotics based approaches to control foodborne infections, Host- microbiome interactions in health and disease

Faculty in Psychological Sciences; Behavioral Neuroscience
Interests: Hippocampal memory, Virtual Reality testing of complex behaviors, Spatial memory and development, Gender differences, Substance Abuse, PTSD

Ana Luisa Barbosa Torreao Dau

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Clinical
Interests: Parenting, Attachment, Early childhood development, Early exposure to life stress and trauma, Disparities in mental health treatment

Marianne Barton

Faculty in Psychological Sciences; Clinical
Interests: Early parent-child relationships, Early Detection of Autism Spectrum Disorders, Developmental trajectories in Autism

Polina Beloborodova

PhD student in Psychological Sciences; Social
Interests: The intersection of positive psychology and contemplative science, with particular interest in mindfulness training effects on self processes.

Naiti Bhatt

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Clinical
Interests: Anxiety, trauma, psychometric validation, stress

Jaime Blackmon

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Clinical
Interests: Anxiety, trauma, psychometric validation, stress

Cynthia Boo

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Developmental Psychology
Interests: Pragmatic language abilities of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Personal narrative production, Context effects on language production

Hayes Brenner

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Ecological
Interests: Music cognition, Rhythmic entrainment and its role on neurodevelopment, Neurodevelopmental disorders (ASD, etc.)

Jeff Burke

Faculty in Psychological Sciences
Interests: The development of the disruptive behavior disorders, Chronic irritability and outcomes of depression and anxiety, Treatment and service engagement related to disruptive behavior disorders

Jackie Caemmerer

Faculty in NEAG school of education; School Psychology
Interests: Psychological Assessment Validity Issues, Relations between Social Variables and Academic Achievement and Application of Structural Equation Modeling & Longitudinal Analysis

Renee Chasse

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Behavioral Neuroscience
Interests: Neurodevelopment of Language, Genetics, Communication Disorders, Behavioral Neuroscience

Silvia Clement-Lam

Postdoc in Psychological Sciences
Interests: Using multimodal behavioral and neuroimaging methods to examine the brain-behavioral basis of literacy development

Cristina Colón-Semenza

Faculty in Kinesiology
Interests: Motivation, behavior change, social support, apathy, effort-based decision-making, health equity, mental health

Hannah Cooke

Grad Student in Curriculum & Instruction; Science Education
Interests: Justice-centered science education, decolonizing science education, and environmental justice through education

Jeffrey Crawford

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Behavioral Neuroscience
Interests: Neurodevelopment of Language, Genetics, Communication Disorders, Behavioral Neuroscience

Nicole Cruse

Faculty in Speech, Language & Hearing Sciences
Interests: Narrative and storytelling patterns; what those patterns can tell us about how language operates in the brain

Jason Crutcher

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Clinical
Interests: Optimal Outcomes in Autism Spectrum Disorder, Psycholinguistics of Autism Spectrum Disorder, Cognitive neuropsychology of pragmatic language

Kimberly Cuevas

Adam David

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Clinical
Interests: Trauma and recovery, Stress-related growth, Self-evaluation, Mindfulness-based interventions, Meaning-making, Habit formation

Kelsey Davinson

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Developmental
Interests: Memory Development, Infant Learning and Memory, Neuroimaging (EEG and MRI)

Lee Drown

Grad Student in Speech, Language & Hearing Sciences
Interests: Speech perception, dyslexia, and Developmental Language Disorder (DLD)

Alev Ecevitoglu

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Behavioral Neuroscience
Interests: Behaviour, pharmacology, neuroscience, stress, and genetics

Amy Egbert

Faculty in Psychological Sciences; Clinical
Interests: Psycholinguistics in autism spectrum disorders (acquisition of language, conversational gestures, discourse and executive processes, prosody); optimal outcomes in ASD; hyperlexia; savant musical skills; implicit learning; functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)

Inge-Marie Eigsti

Renee El-Krab

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Social
Interests: HIV Treatment and Prevention

Christiana Field

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Clinical
Interests: Behavioral interventions for weight loss and weight loss maintenance. Social, cognitive, and environmental influences on weight, diet, and physical activity

Marcus Flax

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Clinical
Interests: Anxiety disorders; OCD; Race-based trauma; Depression; Scrupulosity; Minority mental health; MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy

Adrian Garcia-Sierra

Faculty in Speech, Language & Hearing Sciences
Interests: Brain plasticity, language development, event related potentials, speech perception, and bilingualism.

Alexandra Garr-Schultz

Faculty in Psychological Sciences
Interests: Identity Self-definition Experiences of Marginalization Underrepresented groups Multiple Identities Authenticity Diversity and Inclusion Equity in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Experimental, Qualitative and Longitudinal approaches

Jamilah George

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Clinical
Interests: Anxiety disorders; OCD; Race-based trauma; Depression; Scrupulosity; Minority mental health; MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy

Nikole Giovannone

Grad Student in Speech, Language & Hearing Sciences
Interests: Speech Perception, Prosody, Functional Plasticity, and Electrophysiology

Amy Gorin

Faculty in Psychological Sciences; Clinical
Interests: Treatment strategies to improve long-term weight loss and maintenance, Motivational and environmental processes that affect weight control, Social influences on weight, eating, and physical activity.

Corey Grantham

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Industrial/Organizational Psychology
Interests: Systemic racism and antiracist resistance, Social hierarchies (power, status, inequality), Team emergent states and processes, Personality and psychometrics

Caitrin Hall

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Ecological
Interests: Social dynamics, interpersonal coordination, and group synchronization.

Cara Hardy

Grad assistant in the PhD Biomedical Science Program
Interests: understanding the interface between neural (brain) control

Cheyenne Harris- Starling

Grad Student in Educational Psychology; Research Methods, Measurement, and Evaluation (RMME)
Interests: Research on Evaluation (RoE) and Assessment Literacy

Brittney Hernandez

Grad Student in Educational Psychology; Research Methods, Measurement, and Evaluation (RMME)
Interests: Research on Evaluation (RoE) and Assessment Literacy

Gabrielle Hettie

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Ecological
Interests: Social dynamics, interpersonal coordination, and group synchronization.

James Hughes

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Industrial and Organizational Psychology
Interests: Aging at Work, Hiring Discrimination, Employee Engagement, Virtual Workplaces

Gitte Joergensen

Post-doctoral Researcher in Psychological Sciences; Language & Cognition
Interests: Eye tracking and how to integrate eye movements with other measures such as fMRI and EEG

Chanel Johnson

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Ecological
Interests: Social dynamics, interpersonal coordination, and group synchronization.

Sara Johnson

Faculty in Comparative Literature & Cultural Studies

Interests: Hellenistic Judaism, Ancient Fictions

Steven Kinsey

Faculty in School of nursing
Interests: Anxiety/Depression, Cannabinoid/opioid pharmacology, Chronic pain, Stress and Substance use disorders

George Kuchel

Faculty at UConn Health; Neuroscience, Aging
Interests: Multidisciplinary approaches to the study of aging emphasizing inter-individual variability and resilience mechanisms pertaining to mobility, voiding, cognition and host defense, Design and validation of geroscience-guided interventions into aging and common chronic diseases of aging

Nicole Landi

Faculty in Psychological Sciences; Cognition
Interests: Reading, Reading and Language Disorders, Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, Neuroimaging Genetics

Caroline Larson

Postdoctoral Fellow in Psychological Sciences; Clinical
Interests: Relationships between language and other cognitive factors in children with language disorders, including Developmental Language Disorder and Autism Spectrum Disorder, with the long-term goal of improving differential diagnosis and treatment.

Nathan Lautz

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Language & Cognition
Interests: Cognitive neuroscience of concepts, grounded cognition, semantic control, the neural basis of language

Brittany Lee

Jerin Lee

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Developmental
Interests: language in autism, word learning, verbs, augmentative/alternative communication (AAC)

Sharon Lee

Doctoral Candidate in Psychological Sciences; Clinical
Interests: Biobehavioral mechanisms linking trauma and PTSD with adverse physical health outcomes, with a focus on cardiovascular disease.

Kaya LeGrand

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Developmental
Interests: language in autism, word learning, verbs, augmentative/alternative communication (AAC)

Wesley Leong

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences

Interests: Event cognition and Conceptual Processing in Language

Michael Li

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Clinical
Interests:

Yanran Lin

Jessica Loya

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Language & Cognition
Interests: Language acquisition in children, Heritage speakers

Jie Luo

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences;
Interests: Neural mechanisms of reading development and the neural signatures of successful reading instruction/learning intervention outcome

Jim Magnuson

Faculty in Psychological Sciences
Interests: Neurobiology and psychology of language, including processing, development, and disorders of spoken and written language

Kelly Mahaffy

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Developmental
Interests: Reading and language development, Specific Reading Comprehension Deficits, neuroimaging of reading

Etan Markus

Faculty in Psychological Sciences; Behavioral Neuroscience
Interests: Brain basis of behavior, focusing on rats. Specifically: Memory formation, Aging, Hippocampal system, Navigation, Social Interactions

Kerry Marsh

Faculty in Psychological Sciences; Social Psychology
Interests: Immersive virtual reality methods, Ecological and dynamical approaches to environmental psychology, Motivational influences, Implicit attitudes and HIV risk behavior, Social affordances and interpersonal coordination of movement

Lisset Martinez- Berman

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Developmental
Interests: Reading and language development, Specific Reading Comprehension Deficits, neuroimaging of reading

Betsy McCoach

Faculty in Educational Psychology; Research Methods, Measurement, & Evaluation
Interests: Structural Equation Modeling, Multilevel Modeling, Quantitative Educational Policy Analysis

Ruth McLeod

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Behavioral Neuroscience
Interests: Hypoxic-Ischemic Brain Injury and Behavioral Outcomes

Oliver Lasnick

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Language & Cognition
Interests: Functional connectivity in reading and neurodevelopmental disorders, Temporal sampling and neural oscillations in language, Computational modeling

Katherine McManus- Shipp

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Behavioral Neuroscience
Interests: Hypoxic-Ischemic Brain Injury and Behavioral Outcomes

Hannah Mechtenberg

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Language & Cognition
Interests: how analogical reasoning and language processing intersect to facilitate learning abstract concepts and in creative problem solving

Jonas Miller

Jennifer Mozeiko

Faculty in Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences
Interests: Cognitive neuroscience of speech and language, aphasia, speech perception.

Emily Myers

Faculty in Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences
Interests: Cognitive neuroscience of speech and language, aphasia, speech perception.

Letty Naigles

Alexandra Paxton

Faculty in Psychological Sciences; Ecological
Interests: Communication and social interaction as a complex dynamical system, Data-rich and dynamics-focused research methods and analyses, Naturally occurring datasets and “big data” for psychological theory-building, Ethics of human-derived data

Joselyn Perez

Grad Student in Educational Psychology
Interests: Achievement gaps regarding English Language Learners and self-efficacy of bilingualism

Kenneth Perez

Faculty in Psychological Sciences; Social
Interests: Affective Science, Positive Emotions, Awe and Self-Transcendence on Psychological Well-being

Christian Piscopo

Faculty in Psychological Sciences; Social
Interests: Intergroup Relations, Dynamics of Power, Social Cognition

Felicia Pratto

Faculty in Psychological Sciences; Social
Interests: Intergroup Relations, Dynamics of Power, Social Cognition

Destiny Printz

Faculty in Psychological Sciences; Social
Interests: Affective Science, Positive Emotions, Awe and Self-Transcendence on Psychological Well-being

Madeline Quam

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Developmental
Interests: Language acquisition and emergence, homesign, sign languages, number cognition

Nairan Ramirez- Esparza

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Behavioral Neuroscience
Interests: Analgesic effects and potential side effects of phytochemicals found in the Cannabis plant; Behavioral Neuroscience; Pharmacology; Pain and Cannabis

Carl Rodriguez

Ari Romano- Verthelyi

PhD Student in Psychological Sciences; Clinical
Interests:

David Saltzman

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Language & Cognition
Interests: Neural bases of speech perception, distributional learning of speech sound categories, adaptation to talker specific speech input

Koyel Sen

Grad Student in Pharmaceutical Sciences
Interests: numerical modeling of particle dynamics and 3D printed tablet dosage form

Natalie Shook

Faculty in School of Nursing
Interests: Social Psychology, Mindfulness, Behavior and well-being, Aging and Health Disparities

Kristin Simmers

Grad Student in Educational Psychology
Interests: Mind, Brain, Education sciences (MBE), Science of Learning, Interdisciplinary research in education

Sinead Sinnot

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Clinical
Interests: Stress and health-related outcomes, Post-traumatic stress and resilience, Meditation and mindfulness, Cognitive neuropsychology related to memory and attention

Erika Skoe

Faculty in Speech, Language & Hearing Sciences
Interests: plasticity of the auditory system, auditory evoked potentials, auditory neurophysiology

Rhiannon Smith

Faculty in Psychological Sciences; Developmental
Interests: Friendships and social-emotional adjustment in childhood and adolescence

William Snyder

Faculty in Linguistics
Interests: Language Acquisition, Comparative Syntax, Syntax-Semantics Interface

Jon Sprouse

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Clinical
Interests: Neuropsychology, Developmental & Acquired Language Disorders, Executive Function

Mackenzie Stabile

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Clinical
Interests: Neuropsychology, Developmental & Acquired Language Disorders, Executive Function

Ian Stevenson

Faculty in Psychological Sciences; Behavioral Neuroscience
Interests: Computational Neuroscience, Statistical Analysis of Neural Data, Adaptation and Plasticity

Umay Suanda

Faculty in Psychological Sciences; Developmental
Interests: Early communication and language development, the input and the learning environment, the dynamics of early social interactions, statistical learning, mechanisms of word learning.

Elise Taverna

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Clinical
Interests: Neuropsychology; Cognitive, language and social outcomes in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Rachel Theodore

Faculty in Speech, Language & Hearing Sciences
Interests: Perceptual learning, phonetic variability, cognitive neuroscience, language acquisition.

Hannah Thomas

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Clinical
Interests: Optimal Outcomes in Autism Spectrum Disorder, Cognitive Neuroscience of Communication, Neuropsychology

Rebecca Thomas

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Clinical
Interests: Early identification and assessment of autism spectrum disorders, ASD screening methods in primary care settings

Gray Thomas

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Clinical
Interests: Optimal Outcomes in Autism Spectrum Disorder, Cognitive Neuroscience of Communication, Neuropsychology

Susan Tilbury

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Ecological
Interests: Music Intervention, Rhythmic entrainment, Computational neuroscience, Consciousness, Collective effervescence and ecstatic ritual, Self-other merging, Biorhythmic aspects of anxiety and trauma disorders, Mindfulness and contemplative practices

Alexandria Tomkunas

Grad Student in Human Development & Family Sciences
Interests: Children’s social, emotional, and behavioral well-being, Education equity, School and community interventions, Child resilience

Kiranmayi Vedantham

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Clinical
Interests: Early identification and assessment of autism spectrum disorders, ASD screening methods in primary care settings

Portia Washington

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Language & Cognition
Interests: Event cognition, Sentence processing, Morphosyntax

Anietie Williams

Grad Student in Chemistry

Emma Wing

Grad Student in Psychological Sciences; Language & Cognition
Interests: Event cognition, Sentence processing, Morphosyntax

Torri Ann Woodruff

Grad Student in Hearing, Speech and Language Sciences
Interests: the management of hearing loss with a focus on family centered interventions.

Christine Yantz

Faculty in Psychological Sciences; Clinical
Interests: Neuropsychological assessment, fostering the development of coping skills and behavior change in adults, primarily in medical (pulmonary, cardiac, end-of-life) and medical rehabilitation (stroke, brain injured, amputation, spinal cord injury) populations.