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Stanford Mood and
Anxiety Disorders Lab 2007-2008 | |||||||||
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Visiting Professor Collaborating
Faculty Project
Coordinators |
Graduate Students Honors Thesis
Students Co-Terminal
Students |
Research Assistants Suzan Ahmed Juliana Gonzales Kathryn Langley Kaitlin Nelson Sommer Panage Mirra Schwartz Victoria Thornton Sarah Victor |
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Dr. Ian H. Gotlib received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Waterloo in Canada and is currently Professor of Psychology at Stanford University, Director of the Stanford Mood and Anxiety Disorders Laboratory, and Senior Associate Dean for the Social Sciences. Dr. Gotlib is very active in clinical research. In general, in his research Dr. Gotlib examines information-processing approaches to the study of the cognitive functioning of depressed and anxious children, adolescents, and adults, and the biological, emotional, and behavioral functioning of children of depressed mothers. Two major projects, funded by NIMH, that are currently being conducted in the laboratory involve an examination of the biological, social, and cognitive mechanisms of transmission of risk factors for depression and anxiety from mothers to their young children, and the identification and assessment of depressed and anxious individuals who are characterized by biases in their cognitive functioning. Further information about Ian Gotlib is available on the Psychology Department Web Site. Kate Harkness is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. She is interested in the genetic and psychosocial predictors of major depression in adolescence and young adulthood, including genetic vulnerability, childhood maltreatment, life events, and theory of mind. This year she is spending time with the team learning more about information processing in depression. More detail on her work can be found at Kate's website. Sheri Johnson is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Miami. She is interested in the psychosocial predictors of the course of bipolar disorder, including life events, cognition, sleep, and behavioral activation. From 2002-2003, she spent time with the team learning more about information processing and fMRI. More detail on her work can be found at Sheri's website. Brian Knutson tests hypotheses about the brain basis of emotional experience. Specifically, by using a combination of functional magnetic resonance imaging, psychophysiological probes, and self-report indices, his lab is currently characterizing neural correlates of anticipation of reward and punishment in healthy humans. In collaboration with Dr. Gotlib, his lab is also investigating the brain base of affective dysregulation in patients with affective disorders. email - SPAN lab website Jutta Joormann is an Assistant Professor
of Psychology at the University of Miami. She received her doctoral degree from
the Free University of Berlin, Germany. Her main areas of interest include the
identification of cognitive risk factors for depression, research on the comorbidity
of anxiety and depression, and research on social phobia in adolescents. Her
current work examines attention and memory processes in depression and how these
are linked to rumination and affect regulation. More detail on her work can be found
at Jutta's website. website Melissa Henry graduated from the University of California at Davis in June of 2002. After graduating she spent four years as a post-graduate researcher studying neurodevelopmental disorders in children at UC Davis. Currently, Melissa is interested in research investigating mood and personality disorders as well as neurodevelopment. When not in the lab, Melissa enjoys taking her dog to the dog park, quilting and watching horror movies. website email Hannah Kang graduated from University of California, San Diego in 2005 with a major in psychology. As an undergraduate, she worked as an RA in Professor Susan Tapert's adolescent brain imaging lab. Upon graduating she worked as a research assistant in Dr. James Swain's parent-infant attachment lab at Yale. Currently, she works on fMRI data processing and analysis in GERBIL (Gotlib Experimental Research in Brain Imaging Laboratory). She also loves dogs, eating green gummy bears & plain oatmeal. email Lindsey Sherdell was born and raised in New York City and graduated from Wesleyan University with a double major in English and Psychology. After working in the education industry as a Clinician for people with learning disabilites, she realized her passion for research and joined the MADLab in May of 2006. Broadly-defined, her research interests include the etiology and maintenance of mood disorders, wih a special emphasis on depression. More specifically, she is interested in the motivational and hedonic aspects underlying behavior (or its inhibition), as well as the pathophysiology of depression, such as stress-reactivity and genetic pre-disposition. Lindsey is applying to Clinical Psychology and Personality PhD programs this year…as well as planning her wedding; so, apparently Lindsey likes to stay very busy, or just lacks foresight. When not in the lab, Lindsey also enjoys riding Caltrain, writing, running (in theory), hiking with her dog, and anything involving wine or cheese. email Meggy Wang is a Yale alum (2001-2003) as well as a Stanford graduate (2004-2006), where she received her BA in Psychology with a Creative Writing minor. She is currently working on a multisite research study with the University of Miami and doing various things with fMRI. Her academic interests lie in bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder and the psychology of trauma. She once spent a summer working at the Dynamics Lab at the University of Oregon, where she wrote a paper on gender and disclosure of childhood sexual abuse. She is currently revising a novel about art, love and girls who try. email Yamanda Wright graduated from Stanford University in 2007 with a B.A. in Psychology. She worked as a research assistant in the Mood and Anxiety Disorders Lab for two years before becoming the project coordinator for the Mother/Child Study. Her research interests center on gender and psychopathology, and she plans to apply to PhD programs in clinical psychology in 2008. When not in the lab, Yamanda enjoys black and white photography, live concerts, and scavenging for free dessert. email Moriah Thomason is interested in the changes in a child's brain over time, that lead to improvements in emotion regulation and cognitive control. Her doctoral work was focused on the development of working memory in the child's brain, using fMRI. The goal of her postdoctoral research is to explore biological factors that are associated with genetic polymorphisms in the promoter region (5-HTTLPR) of the serotonin transporter (5-HTT) gene in childhood and adolescence. This gene is associated with biological vulnerability and the development of anxiety disorders, but the early impact of this genotype on brain biology is not yet understood. Additionally, she is interested in how we can improve neuroimaging techniques to more accurately reflect underlying neural processes. Therefore, a separate arm of her research program is focused on improving fMRI methodology. email Moriah's website/Moriah's brain scan movie Karen Dearing received her Ph.D in clinical psychology from the University of Delaware in 2004, after completing her internship at Lucille Packard Children's Hospital here at Stanford. Her research and clinical work has focused almost exclusively on children and adolescents. During her post-baccalaureate work at Duke University, Karen developed a strong interest in children's peer relationships and how struggles with peers relate to concurrent and future maladjustment and psychopathology. In her graduate work, Karen became interested more specifically in the mechanisms of risk in children who struggle with peers, and examined how emotion regulation, broadly construed, operates in the relation between social deficits on the one hand and externalizing and internalizing behavior on the other. Karen's passion, though, lies with the internalization of spectrum disorders. Currently, Karen is involved in research in the Gotlib lab that aims to identify mechanisms of risk for early onset depression, especially those related to social, neuroendocrine, and neurological aspects of emotion regulation. email Paul Hamilton received his Ph.D. in 2004 from the University of Michigan. There he studied neural and cognitive plasticity, using methods from cognitive and computational neuroscience. The focus of his postdoctoral work will be to use these methods in the study of depression with the aim of building explicit, empirically constrained neural models of the depressive syndrome. email Christian Waugh received a PhD in Psychology and a Certificate in Cognitive Neuroscience from the University of Michigan. There, he used behavioral and fMRI techniques to study the interaction between trait resilience and recovery from the anticipation of negative events. During his postdoctoral tenure at Stanford, he hopes to continue this line of work with depressed and non-depressed individuals. email Sara Levens email Michael C. Chen is a second year graduate student in the Stanford Mood and Anxiety Disorders Lab, where he researches the genetic and biological contributions to psychopathology in children and adults. His research focuses on neurological development, neuroendocrinology, immunology, and sleep. He received his bachelor's degree in psychology- behavioral neuroscience from Yale University, where he studied animal models of epilepsy. email Daniella Furman is a first year graduate student interested in the biological bases of thought and emotion. Her current research examines genetic and neural contributions to ruminative processing. She received her BA in sociology from Vassar College. When not in the lab, Daniella enjoys spear fishing, interpretive dance, and scrapbooking. email Victoria Thornton is a coterm studying the genetic and neural mechanisms of mood disorders. She is currently investigating the BDNF polymorphism in children at-risk for depression. In her free time, Victoria enjoys hiking, roadtrips, babysitting, and walking her dog. email Jenny Cribbs See bio below. Juliana Gonzalez See bio below. Sommer Panage See bio below. Suzan Ahmed is a junior from Yuma, Arizona, majoring in psychology, with a focus on health and development. She spent last summer working at the Down Syndrome lab at the Stanford School of Medicine, where she ran mice models of Down syndrome through various behavioral tasks, noting the effects of down syndrome on long-term potentiation and memory in mice. While fascinated by this experience, Suzan -- after two too many mouse bites -- decided she was interested in pursuing more in-depth the behavioral, social, and cognitive bases of abnormal psychopathology and mental disorders. And working with human beings. She plans to apply to a graduate program in clinical psychology, and hopes to eventually have her own clinical practice, possibly specializing in therapy for children, adolescents, and/or women. When not in the lab, Suzan enjoys co-directing Dv8, a hip-hop dance troupe on campus, as well as reading, sleeping, and eating. email Juliana Gonzales is a senior from San Antonio, Texas. She joined the lab in the fall of 2005. She is majoring in Psychology and pursuing the Health and Development track. Juliana plans on attending graduate school and earning a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology. She hopes to become a college professor and maintain a clinical practice on the side. Juliana is interested in helping adolescents with psychological disorders, and hopes to work with teenagers in the future. Juliana's passion for psychology increased after she studied psychological disorders in depth while she was abroad at Oxford University. She is also a Co-coordinator for the Latino Big Sib/Little Sib program, and she is an active member of the Catholic community at Stanford. email Kathryn Langley graduated from the University of Southern California in May 2007 with a BA in Psychology and a Minor in Forensics and Criminality. While attending USC she conducted research on the Child Secrecy Study, a project seeking to optimize child testimony in court. Kathryn interviewed abused children about their beliefs regarding lies, promises, and secrets. She is fascinated with psychopathology and plans on applying to PhD programs in Clinical Psychology after further narrowing her research interests. Kathryn also enjoys playing soccer, traveling, and barbequing with family and friends.email Kaitlin Nelson graduated from the University of Florida with a B.S. in Psychology. Her goal is to get a Ph.D. in clinical psychology. Her specific interest in the field is on the nature of anxiety disorders and the effectiveness of different treatments for these disorders. email Jeffry Newell received his B.A. from U.C. Berkeley in May, 2007. Jeff graduated with highest honors for his work establishing the human sigh as a form of emotional expression, which is now being prepared to submit for publication. He also received the departmental citation for top graduating student of his class that year. He has a wide range of research interests which include intervention strategies for populations at risk for psychological disorders, how emotions are expressed in different psychopathologies, and how modern technology is affecting our face-to-face social interactions. Jeff would also like to organize and run another “Hands Across America” benefit by 2009, saying, “We had more breaks in the chains in 1986 than we wanted. I think with a little hard work and a lot of spirit nothing can keep us from going coast-to-coast by 2009”. Good luck with that Jeff! email Sommer Panage is a senior majoring in psychology from Beaverton, Oregon. She joined the lab in the fall of 2005 to get experience with clinical populations and to gain a better grasp of psychology by actively participating in research. She also is active in the study of computer science and hopes to incorporate it into her future work. Outside of school, Sommer enjoys playing the flute, climbing, dancing salsa and lindy hop, wandering in organic grocery stores, and spending as much time as she can in San Francisco. After completing her bachelors, she plans to pursue a masters in computer science followed by further graduate work in either Clinical Psychology or Human Computer Interaction.email Mirra Schwartz is a junior majoring in psychology and neuroscience with a minor in fiction writing. Mirra spent her last summer researching the neural correlates of abnormal psychology in New Mexico prisons, examining addiction through fMRI. In her free time, Mirra loves to write stories, go to San Francisco, and find the best samples at Trader Joe?s. email Sarah Victor is a senior, majoring in Psychology (with a focus in clinical and abnormal psychology) and minoring in Political Science (with a focus in international relations). While Sarah loves political and legal issues, she is planning on bucking the family tradition of law school by pursuing graduate study in clinical psychology after graduation. Originally from Milwaukee, WI, Sarah spends her free time staffing at the YWCA Rape Crisis Center, staying up into the wee hours of the night, and enjoying the fact that California weather is a dramatic improvement from home. email | |||||||||
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Stanford Mood and Anxiety
Disorders Laboratory Department of Psychology, Jordan Hall, Building 420 Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-2130 Send email to: mood@psych.stanford.edu |
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