Department of Psychology

Undergraduate Institution:
University of Rhode Island

Margeaux's work involves the study of memory and aging.  She is exploring the role of personality factors in source memory.  Her next project will focus on false memory in older adults and hopes that by examining aspects that influence memory errors her work can be applied in a practical setting to improve memory as we age.

Erin Bishop

Undergraduate Institution:
Hamilton College

Erin is interested in the link between parent-child relationships and child aggression and victimization. Her previous research focused on the link between parents' beliefs about aggression and their children's beliefs about aggression and acts of aggression. Currently, she is examining parent strategies for dealing with their children's victimization in high school.

Undergraduate Institution:
University of Wisconsin, Madison

Nicholas Brisbon
Area: Social Development
Lab: Lifespan Developmental Psychology
Advisor: Margie Lachman
Location: Brown 104
Email: nbris@brandeis.edu
Phone: 781-736-3251

Undergraduate Institution:
University of MA at Amherst

Undergraduate Institution:
Boston University

Brittany's research uses fMRI and behavioral methods to study the neuroscience of human social behavior and memory throughout the lifespan.  Her current work focuses on how encoding context modulates the way people are able to remember impressions of others, and how the neural correlates of impression formation change with increasing age.  She is also interested in how different facial characteristics interact with behavioral information when encoding first impressions.

Xuejie Chen
Area: Brain, Body & Behavior
Lab: Health Psychology
Advisor: Nicolas Rohleder
Location: Brown 25
Email: xjchen@brandeis.edu
Phone: 781-736-3437

Undergraduate University:
Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine

Xuejie is interested in exploring the influence of psychological factors on health. Currently she is participating in a project on how the immune system responds and habituates to repeated acute social stress (TSST) and the difference of these pattern between age groups (young adult and old adult). She is also interested in the role of cognitive appraisal as the moderate/mediator factors between stress and health outcomes.

Ashley Geiger
Area: Brain, Body & Behavior
Lab: Health Psychology
Advisor: Jutta Wolf
Location: Brown 318
Email: ageiger@brandeis.edu
Phone: 781-736-3280

Undergraduate Institution:
University of Arizona

Danielle Gianferante
Area: Brain, Body & Behavior
Lab: Health Psychology
Advisor: Nicolas Rohleder
Location: Brown 25
Email: dgia@brandeis.edu
Phone: 781-736-3437

Undergraduate Institution:
University of MA Amherst

Danielle does research in the Health Psychology lab. She is primarily interested in the role that stress hormones have in immune system functioning, particularly as people age. She is also interested in cognitive processes, such as rumination, that can affect hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activity.

Franklyn Graham
Area: Social Development
Advisor: Raymond Knight
Location: Brown 16
Email: fjgraham@brandeis.edu
Phone: 781-736-3298

Undergraduate Institution:
Washington State University

Luke Hanlin
Area: Social Development
Lab: Health Psychology
Advisor: Nicolas Rohleder
Location: Brown 318
Email:  lhanlin@brandeis.edu
Phone: 781-736-3280

Undergraduate Institution:
Purdue University

Sonja Krstic
Area: Social Development
Lab: Knight
Advisor: Raymond Knight
Location: Brown 15
Email: skrstic@brandeis.edu
Phone: 781-736-3298

Undergraduate Institution:
University of Belgrade

Undergraduate Institution:
Bloomsburg University

Mary Jo's research interests include looking at the links between attention and emotion regulation in older adults. She is currently completing a project where she examined whether or not older individuals use attentional biases to positive emotional information to regulate their moods.

Amanda Lash
Area: Cognitive Neuroscience
Lab: Memory & Cognition
Advisor: Arthur Wingfield
Location: Volen 356
Email:  aml9743@brandeis.edu
Phone: 781-736-3274

Undergraduate Institution:
University of North Carolina at Wilmington

Amanda's interests are in perception, cognition, and successful aging. Her work examines the effects of age, hearing acuity, and linguistic context on spoken word recognition. She is currently investigating the interaction between the cognitive and perceptual declines associated with aging.

Yoona Lee
Area: Social Development
Lab: Watson
Advisor: Malcolm Watson
Location: Rabb 116
Email: yoona@brandeis.edu
Phone: 781-736-3252

Undergraduate Institution:
Sungshin Women's University

Yoona’s research involves the study of peer aggression (bullying as bullies and victims), parental aggression (punitive discipline and child abuse), and apology/forgiveness. Specifically, it includes developmental trajectories of externalizing/internalizing behaviors as outcomes of timing effects of bullying (stability and change of bully status) and moderating effects of family relationships, different qualitative hierarchy of child abuse type perception across cultures, the effects of hierarchical and cumulative types of child maltreatment on subsequent risks, and how offenders and victims use self-other apology and forgiveness. Currently, she is examining the moderators of ethnic family relationships and normativeness of punitive discipline between punitive discipline and externalizing behaviors across ethnicities. 

Undergraduate Institution:
Beijing Normal University

Monika Lohani

Undergraduate Institution:
M.J.P. Rohilkhand University

Monika’s research focuses on studying individual and age-related differences in managing emotions.  She has used different measures to assess emotional response including self-report, expression, eye tracking, and psychophysiology.  She is interested in understanding more efficient ways of managing emotions through the use of multiple methods.

Sarah Lupis
Area: Brain, Body & Behavior
Lab: Health Psychology
Advisor: Jutta Wolf
Location: Brown 25
Email: slupis@brandeis.edu
Phone: 781-736-2437

Undergraduate Institution:
Boston University

Sarah's research focuses on investigating the effects of emotion experience on the physiological stress response.  She is currently using facial coding analysis to determine the role of self-conscious emotions experienced during an acute psychosocial stressor, and the ways that body esteem may mediate this relationship.  Sarah also serves as a phlebotomist for the the Brandeis Health Psychology laboratory.

Sujala Maharjan
Area: Cognitive Neuroscience
Lab: Visual Cognition & Neuroscience
Advisor: Robert Sekuler
Location:Volen 242
Email: sujmaha@brandeis.edu
Phone: 781-736-3266

Undergraduate Institution:
Wesleyan College

Undergraduate Institution:
Fitchburg State College

Scott's research interests include aesthetic emotion, appraisal theory, tragic pleasure, the elicitation and differentiation of enjoyment and interest in music and art, the taxometric structure of emotion, and nonverbal emotion perception. Using an in vivo experimental approach, he is currently examining the appraisal structure of interest when elicited through auditory and visual channels (e.g. classical music and impressionist paintings), as well as facial expressions of interest. He is also conducting a concurrent study examining the enjoyment and pursuit of negative emotions in music and art which would normally be considered aversive in non-aesthetic environments. 

Undergraduate Institution:
University of New Hampshire 

Abby is interested in how people learn and monitor expectations for future events. She uses behavioral methods, eye tracking, and EEG source localization to study how neural activity changes as expectations develop, which systems react when an unexpected event occurs, and how such events influence future learning.

Alexander Panic
Lab: Ashton Graybiel Spacial Orientation
Advisor: Paul DiZio
Location: Rabb 5
Email: panics@brandeis.edu
Phone: 781-736-2044

Undergraduate Institution:
Technische University Delft

Sacha's primary research interest is how the central nervous system uses visual cues, in addition to vestibular and proprioceptive cues, to produce a sense of spatial orientation. He intends to investigate this during his PhD study.

During his Master's study in Psychology he investigated the process of motor adaptation to unusual force environments, such as altered gravity.

Another research interest is in factors that mediate the experience that people have when interacting with machines. During his Master's study in Man Machine Interaction he investigated how virtual reality based neurocognitive rehabilitation exercises can be designed and engineered so that they explicitly take the patient's motivation into account.

Kenneth Pitts
Area: Brain, Body & Behavior
Lab: Health Psychology
Advisor: Jutta Wolf
Location: Brown 25
Email: kppitts@brandeis.edu
Phone: 781-736-2437

Undergraduate Institute:
University of Massachusetts Lowell

Undergraduate Institution:
SUNY, Fredonia

Mike's research focuses on examining anxiety and the biological markers of stress from a social-developmental perspective. He studies both antecedents to stress reactivity, such as trait vulnerability and situational demands, as well as consequences of stress on physical and cognitive health. Mike also does work in the Rohleder/Wolf Health Psychology wetlab, helping to prepare saliva and blood for analysis.

Carrie Robertson
Area: Social Development
Lab: Knight
Advisor: Raymond Knight
Location: Brown 15
Email: carrob@brandeis.edu
Phone: 781-736-3298

Undergraduate Institution:
Kenyon College

Carrie is interested in looking at the characteristics of psychopathic and sadistic sexual offenders. For her Master’s thesis, Carrie addressed the predictive nature of the psychopathy facets and sadism in both sexual and non-sexual violence.

Undergraduate Institution:
Stonehill College

Nicole is interested in studying factors that promote healthy aging and enable older adults to maintain physical and cognitive functioning. Her current project is focused on memory changes in older adults and looking at the use of self-referencing to improve source memory. 

Yile Sun
Area: Cognitive Neuroscience
Lab: Visual Cognition & Neuroscience
Advisor: Robert Sekuler
Location: Volen 242
Email: ylesun@brandeis.edu
Phone: 781-736-3266

Undergraduate Institution:
University of California at Davis

Salom Teshale
Area: Social Development
Lab: Lifespan Developmental Psychology
Advisor: Margie Lachman
Location: Brown 104
Email: salom@brandeis.edu
Phone: 781-736-3251

Undergraduate Institution:
University of Chicago

Jaclyn Aldrich
Advisor: Ellen Wright
Location: Lemberg 115
Email: jaldrich@brandeis.edu
Phone: 781-736-3285

Undergraduate Institution:
Marywood College

Shelley Barber
Lab: Cunningham
Advisor: Joseph Cunningham
Location: Lemberg 101
Email: sbarber@brandeis.edu
Phone: 781-736-3293

Undergraduate Institution:
Agnes Scott College

Julianna Bednar
Lab: Lifespan Developmental Psychology
Advisor: Margie Lachman
Location: Lemberg 112
Email: jbednar@brandeis.edu
Phone: 781-736-3147

Undergraduate Institution:
Saint Anselm College

Leanne Beliveau
Advisor: Xiaodong Liu
Location: Lemberg 115
Email: lb134060@brandeis.edu
Phone: 781-736-3285

Undergraduate Institution:
Endicott College

Ariel Berman
Advisor: Raymond Knight
Location: Brown 318
Email: akberman@brandeis.edu
Phone: 781-736-3280

Undergraduate Institution:
Brandeis University

Keyi Cai
Advisor: Xiaodong Liu
Location: Lemberg 115
Email: caiky@brandeis.edu
Phone: 781-736-3285

Undergraduate Institution:
Ohio State University

Chuchu Cheng
Advisor: Xiaodong Liu
Location: Lemberg 112
Email: ccc@brandeis.edu
Phone: 781-736-3147

Undergraduate Institution:
Beijing Normal University

Wanli Cheng
Lab: Ashton Graybiel Spatial Orientation
Advisor: Paul DiZio
Location: Rabb 16
Email: wanli@brandeis.edu
Phone: 781-736-2040

Undergraduate Institution:
Fudan University

Jennifer Cox
Advisor: Xiaodong Liu
Location: Lemberg 112
Email: jcox@brandeis.edu
Phone: 781-736-3147

Undergraduate Institution:
Elon College

Laura Ligouri
Lab: Aging, Culture & Cognition
Advisor: Angela Gutchess
Location: Lemberg 112
Email: lligouri@brandeis.edu
Phone: 781-736-3147

Undergraduate Institution:
City University of New York

Jia Liu
Advisor: Raymond Knight
Location: Lemberg 115
Email: jialiu@brandeis.edu
Phone: 63285

Undergraduate Institution:
Zhejiang University

Emily Murphy
Lab: Memory and Cognition
Advisor: Arthur Wingfield
Location: Volen 354
Email: esmurphy@brandeis.edu
Phone: 781-736-3274

Undergraduate Institution:
Messiah College

Stacey Ng
Lab: Face Perception
Advisor: Leslie Zebrowitz
Location: Brown 18C
Email: sng@brandeis.edu
Phone: 781-736-3254

Undergraduate Institution:
Cornell University

Nathan Roman
Lab: Health Psychology
Advisor: Jutta Wolf
Location: Lemberg 112
Email: nroman@brandeis.edu
Phone: 781-736-3147

Undergraduate Institution:
University of California, Los Angeles

Juliette Saltz
Lab: Health Psychology
Advisor: Nicolas Rohleder
Location: Brown 318
Email: jsaltz@brandeis.edu
Phone: 781-736-3280

Undergraduate Institution:
Rutgers University

Brian Tolles

Undergraduate Institution:
Hofstra University

Jonathan Watson
Lab: Knight
Advisor: Raymond Knight
Location: Brown 15
Email: jawatson@brandeis.edu
Phone: 781-736-3298

Undergraduate Institution:
Washington University

Robin Young
Advisor: Malcolm Watson
Location: Rabb 116
Email: reyoung@brandeis.edu
Phone: 781-736-3252

Undergraduate Institution:
University of Massachusetts, Boston