Current Experimental Psychology PhD Students

Entering Class of 2026

Student	Research Interests
Emma Caffrey	Faculty Mentor: Dr. Eric Thrailkill I am interested in learning and decision-making processes. Specifically, my research focuses on attentional shifts during habit learning and on how loss aversion influences health-related decision-making, especially in the context of smoking and drug use.
Ceean Edwards	Faculty Mentor: Alexis Brieant My research interest includes understanding how the timing and accumulation of adversity, socio-environmental risk factors, and experiences of safety and resilience independently and collectively shape neurodevelopmental trajectories and mental health across development. Hobbies/Interests: Cricket, swimming, hiking, reading mythical lore, and practicing taekwondo.
Jaren Slawitschka	Faculty Mentor: Dr. Sara LoTemplio My research interests lie at the intersection of cognitive psychology, environmental neuroscience, and mindfulness. Specifically, understanding how natural environments and mindfulness practices influence attention, cognitive control, and emotional regulation in applied settings. I hope to better understand the mechanisms underlying these effects by examining their behavioral and psychophysiological correlates.

Student

Research Interests

Emma Caffrey

Person in a dark shirt smiling outdoors.

I am interested in learning and decision-making processes. Specifically, my research focuses on attentional shifts during habit learning and on how loss aversion influences health-related decision-making, especially in the context of smoking and drug use.

Ceean Edwards

Person in a blue top smiling beside a tree.

Faculty Mentor: Alexis Brieant

My research interest includes understanding how the timing and accumulation of adversity, socio-environmental risk factors, and experiences of safety and resilience independently and collectively shape neurodevelopmental trajectories and mental health across development. Hobbies/Interests: Cricket, swimming, hiking, reading mythical lore, and practicing taekwondo.

Jaren Slawitschka

Person wearing a baseball cap and smiling outdoors.

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Sara LoTemplio

My research interests lie at the intersection of cognitive psychology, environmental neuroscience, and mindfulness. Specifically, understanding how natural environments and mindfulness practices influence attention, cognitive control, and emotional regulation in applied settings. I hope to better understand the mechanisms underlying these effects by examining their behavioral and psychophysiological correlates.

Previous Entering Classes

Entering Class of 2025

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Michéle Day

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Hugh Garavan

My research focuses on identifying risk factors for substance use and abuse onset on both a neurodevelopment and environmental level. I use machine learning methods and fMRI to explore the ways early life experiences and brain development shape adolescents' experiences with drugs later in life, as well as how these developmental trajectories impact future defiant and violent behavior.

Kayla Joyce

Faculty Mentor: Jamie Abaied

I am currently researching the intersection of parental racial and sexual socialization. Furthermore, I am investigating how we can reduce queer bias in children/adolescents via evaluating their parents' behaviors and practices. My research interests overall include LGBTQIA+ populations, family dynamics, parental racial and sexual socialization, and stigma/prejudice.

Entering Class of 2024

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Natalie Fuchs

Mentor: Dr. Elizabeth Pinel

Subprogram: Social

Areas: My research interests specifically include existential isolation/connection and I-sharing. I am eager to further test philosophical concepts empirically with the goal of understanding more about the psychological impacts of how humans conceptualize their realities. On an applied level, I am interested in examining the utility of existential connection for interpersonal and inter-group harmony.

Entering Class of 2021

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Zaidan Mohammed

Zaidan, smiling against a neutral white background

Mentor: Donna Toufexis

Subprogram: Biobehavioral

Areas: Behavioral neuroscience, the development of habitual behavior, sex differences, stress

Entering Class of 2020

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Mahafuza Aktar

A smiling student, outdoors, standing next to a yellow-beige structure

Mentor: Sayamwong Hammack

Subprogram: Biobehavioral

Areas: My research focuses on the effects of chronic stress and the mechanism how chronic stress might produce anxiety like behavior, using transgenic mouse model. I am also interested in the neuropeptide called the pituitary adenylate cyclase activating polypeptide in the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis and its effects on anxiety like behavior.

Samantha Moriarty

Mentor: Sayamwong Hammack

Subprogram: Biobehavioral

Areas: My areas of interest include stress and anxiety and their effects on the brain, as well as the role of stress in reinstating behaviors related to addiction.

Entering Class of 2019

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Tatum Oleskowicz

A bispeckled Tatum outdoors with green grass and trees in the background

Areas: I am interested in investigating the biopsychosocial underpinnings of drug dependence and interventions to more effectively treat it.

Subprogram: Social

Mentor: Elizabeth Pinel