Zeba Ahmad
clinical program

Zeba earned an Ed.M. in Human Development and Psychology from Harvard University and an M.A. in Clinical Psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University. She has worked with lung cancer caregivers as a study interventionist and facilitates a psychosocial support group for adolescents undergoing surgery for morbid obesity. Her research interests include the mechanisms by which strategies for coping with stress can influence psychological health in people with chronic physical illness. She hopes to integrate findings on regulatory flexibility, psychological pain, and relationship-level processes of support provision to help develop interventions promoting psychosocial functioning after illness or bereavement.
Primary advisor: Jennifer Ford

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Stephen Bosco
clinical program

Stephen graduated from Pace University with a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology. As an undergraduate he was a research assistant for the Center for Urban Health and Educational Research group and conducted observational research in mental health facilities exploring the ways in which art installations may enhance an individual’s cognition as well as conducted quantitative studies investigating the effect of masculine perceptions among men who have sex with men (MSM). After graduation he began working at the Center for HIV Educational Studies & Training (CHEST) as a research assistant, where his work has focused on intimate MSM dyadic relationships and communication patterns around substance abuse and sexual agreements. He aims to help develop interventions that will increase the quality and effectiveness of communication around HIV prevention and relationship/sexual satisfaction.
Primary advisor: Tyrel Starks

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Kara Buda
clinical program

Kara received her B.S. in Psychology from Juniata College in 2012. She went on to receive her M.A. at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she specialized in Research Methods and Underserved Populations. She has worked as a Research Project Coordinator at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where she was responsible for the management of multiple research studies across a variety of cancer types and patient populations. Her research interests include exploring adverse health outcomes associated with chronic stress and complex disease management/ transition to palliative care in both patients and their informal caregivers.
Primary advisor: Evelyn Behar

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Joseph Carter
clinical program

Joseph graduated from CUNY Hunter College, with a Masters in Psychology. His research interests focus on the intersections of race and sexual orientation that contribute to psychological and sexual health disparities among sexual minority populations. He has worked at the Center for HIV Educational Studies and Training for three years, as both a research assistant and a project coordinator. He ultimately hopes that his career in research and clinical sciences directly informs behavior intervention and prevention measures that mitigate health inequities among vulnerable populations, and improve the quality of life for sexual minority populations as a whole.
Primary advisor: Jon Rendina

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Jorge Cienfuegos Szalay
clinical program

Jorge graduated from the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) with a B.A. in Psychology and an M.P.H. from the UPR Graduate School of Public Health. In 2015, he started working as a research assistant for the Sex+ TEAM, a group dedicated to the study of the social effects of HIV, stigma and sexual risk behavior, mainly with the LGBTQ+ population in Puerto Rico. Jorge’s current research interests include the constructs of masculinity, internalized homophobia, risky sexual behavior, and how these affect the mental and physical health of LGBTQ+ minorities. He aims to keep working with issues related to the health and well being of ethnic and sexual minorities.
Primary advisor: Jon Rendina

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Jennifer de Rutte
clinical program

​Jennifer received her B.A. in psychology from Loyola Marymount University in 2018. As an undergraduate, she was a research assistant in the Emotion and Social Relationships Lab and conducted a research project studying how social relationships influence the relationship between emotion regulation and depression. Upon graduation, she began work as a research assistant in the HeadsUP lab at LMU conducting research on web-based intervention strategies for college student drinking. Jennifer’s current research interests include using technology-based interventions to affect positive change through cognitive and emotional mechanisms of anxiety and mood disorders.
Primary advisor: Tracy Dennis

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Trey Dellucci
clinical program

Trey received his B.A. in psychology from Southeastern Louisiana University in 2012 and his M.S. in psychology from DePaul University in 2015. His primary research interests are in the development of romantic and family relationships among sexual and gender minorities (SGM), and the protective influence of these relationships on negative health outcomes and behaviors. At DePaul, he examined predictors of resiliency among at-risk youth with an emphasis on family and romantic relationship factors. Since 2015, Trey has worked as a Research Study Assistant at Northwestern University’s Institute for Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Well Being where he examined the role of romantic relationships on sexual health risk-taking among men who have sex with men. He plans to focus on developing couples- and family-based interventions for sexual and gender minorities.
Primary advisor: Tyrel Starks

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Beverlin Del Rosario
clinical program

Beverlin received her B.S. in Psychology at Xavier University of Louisiana. As a MARC and Ronald E. McNair scholar, she conducted research investigating attitudes toward and perceptions of skin bleaching. Her research interests include examining how cognitive-emotional strategies reduce or prevent future self-harm and suicide attempts; developing effective assessment tools that identify youth at risk of self-harm and suicide attempts; and identifying cognitive-emotional factors that promote resilience in youths with suicidal ideation and a history of self-harm.
Primary advisor: Regina Miranda

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Kendell Doyle
clinical program

Kendell earned a BA in Psychology from CUNY Hunter in 2016. She has since been working at the Center for HIV Educational Studies and Training (CHEST) as a Project Coordinator. Her current research interests include coping processes among patients diagnosed with a chronic illness and their families. More specifically, she is interested in how maladaptive forms of coping and other health risk behaviors impact disease trajectory and overall health outcomes. In addition, she is interested in how interpersonal relationships impact coping processes and health behavior. Through research, she aims to promote healthy coping strategies for individuals and family members affected by chronic illness to diminish health risk behavior that negatively impacts disease trajectory.
Primary advisor: Tyrel Starks

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Boyang Fan
clinical program

Boyang received his BA in Psychology at University of California, Los Angeles in 2013. After graduating from UCLA, he worked as a research coordinator at the Anxiety and Depression Research Center at UCLA examining positive and negative affect in people with anxiety and depression. Boyang’s broad research interests include the mechanisms of emotion dysregulation in people with anxiety and depression. His work examines behavioral and psychophysiological measurements to better capture treatment changes within an emotion regulation therapy framework.
Primary advisor: Tracy Dennis

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Sugandha Gupta
clinical program

Sugandha Gupta received a B.S. in Psychology and Health Sciences from Stony Brook University. She completed her undergraduate honors thesis on the role of optimistic bias in hypothetical surrogate decision making during end-of-life care. Her research interests involve understanding the interactions between patient and physician within the healthcare environment, and how these interactions may influence recovery, adjustment, and coping habits. She is passionate about helping to develop interventions that increase the effectiveness and quality of health care by balancing physical, psychological, and environmental factors.
Primary advisor: Tracey Revenson

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Danielle Hazeltine
​clinical program

​Danielle graduated from New York University with a BA in Psychology with honors where she contributed to work on the effects of stress and increased cortisol on cognition and decision making. After graduating, she worked as an associate researcher at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital and has authored publications examining the effects of prenatal stress on children’s brain health and wellbeing. She has also contributed to work on posttraumatic stress and the long-term health effects it has on World Trade Center first responders. Currently, Danielle is interested in examining the relationships between anxiety, diet, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, and the immune system. 
Primary advisor: Laura Reigada

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Madalyn Liautaud
​clinical program

​Madalyn graduated from Northwestern University in 2015 with a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and a minor in Gender & Sexuality Studies. She then spent several years at the University of Southern California’s Health, Addiction, and Emotion Lab, where she served as a Project Coordinator for a study investigating the bio-behavioral effects of estrogen and progesterone on smoking. Most recently, she worked as a Behavioral Research Associate within the Gender Development Program at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, where she managed clinical intake data provided by gender-expansive youth and their families. She is interested in researching biopsychosocial, stress-related mechanisms that drive health disparities within the sexual and gender minority community. Specifically, she aims to identify risk and protective factors that influence sensitivity to minority stress and evaluate how subjective expressions of minority stress map onto objective biomarkers and indices of stress.
Primary advisor: Danielle Berke

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Chris Liong
clinical program

Chris graduated from Wesleyan University with a B.A. in Neuroscience, English, and Psychology. After graduating he served as a research coordinator at Yale University, working on clinical trials aimed at patients with co-occurring chronic pain and opiate dependence. He then worked at Columbia University Medical Center as a coordinator examining risk factors of Parkinson’s disease through biomarkers and genetics. He seeks to explore the intersection of neuroscience and psychology by developing and using biological models to examine clinical questions in psychology.
Primary advisor: Deborah Walder

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Jonathan Lopez Matos
health psychology program

Jonathan completed a B.A. in Psychology at the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez and a M.A. in General Psychology at Hunter College. He has worked in various not-for-profit organizations in Puerto Rico and the United States, focusing on HIV prevention in sexual and racial minority populations. He has worked at the GAMMA Project of the UPR-Medical Sciences Campus and at the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies of the New York Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University. Jonathan also served as a Health Educator at the Latino Pride Center in New York City. Recently, he has focused his work on minority stress, intersectionality and sexual risk-taking among gay and bisexual men and transgender women at CHEST and has also volunteered to work with the LGBTQ Latino and undocumented immigrant communities. His research interests include racial, sexual orientation and gender intersectionality; minority stress and its impact on sexual decision making and general well-being. He is interested in developing interventions that can increase positive mental and sexual health.
Primary advisor: Jon Rendina

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Natalia Macrynikola
clinical program

After earning her BA from the University of Georgia in 2007, Natalia spent seven years working in digital health communications. She served as a writer and editor for media outlets such as EverydayHealth.com, and consulted in digital and social media for nonprofit and for-profit organizations. In 2015, she joined Dr. Regina Miranda’s experimental psychopathology lab, where she investigated the buffering effects of social support against different types of self-injurious thoughts and behavior in emerging adulthood. She also worked as a grant coordinator for Hunter College’s Mental Health Awareness and Suicide Prevention Program, helped to conduct research on memory and learning and on fear at NYU and on fear of cancer recurrence after treatment at the University of Ottawa. Natalia’s current research interests include understanding the role of interpersonal processes in self-harm and suicide, and exploring the intersection of media and psychology, particularly how social media affects cognition and emotion.
Primary advisor: Regina Miranda

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Irina Mindlis
clinical program

Irina graduated from the University of Palermo in Buenos Aires with a B.Sc. in Psychology in 2013, and received her MPH concentrating in Epidemiology from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in 2015. She then worked in the Internal Medicine Department of Mount Sinai looking at health outcomes of World Trade Center rescue and recovery workers, depression screening in primary care, and interventions to improve self-management behaviors in elderly asthmatics. Irina’s current interests are in integrating mental health into primary care, and how race and ethnicity affects patient-physician communication.
Primary advisor: Tracey Revenson

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Barbara Storch
clinical program

Barbara graduated from Tufts University in 2016, double majoring in Cognitive & Brain Sciences and Child Study & Human Development (focus: Child and Family Health). Since then, she has worked as a Research Coordinator in the Pediatric Psychopharmacology & Adult ADHD Clinical and Research Program at Massachusetts General Hospital, primarily coordinating a laboratory classroom study for children with ADHD. Her research interests include the psychological outcomes and comorbidities of having a chronic illness in childhood, and the current interventions and interactions that can be used to ameliorate these disease trajectories.
Primary advisor: Laura Reigada

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Laurel Weaver
clinical program

Laurel graduated from the University of Texas at Dallas with a B.A. in Psychology in 2011 and earned her M.A. in Psychology from New York University in 2013. As a student, she cultivated a passion for exploring the intersection between physical and mental health by focusing her studies on biopsychology-related coursework and by assisting with HIV-related research activities at NYU’s Center for Health, Identity, Behavior, and Prevention Studies. After graduating, she moved on to a grant-funded research position evaluating the healthcare behaviors and experiences of people living with HIV/AIDS who also exhibit problem substance use. Her primary research interests focus on the physical, mental, and sexual health of HIV+ individuals who experience issues with drugs and alcohol. She aims to help develop substance use treatment interventions that promote mental health and antiretroviral medication adherence.
Primary advisor: Jon Rendina

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David Yap
clinical program

​After earning a B.A. in Anthropology from McGill University, David taught English in Japan, edited college biology textbooks, worked in education reform, co-founded an activist printing cooperative, and taught science aboard a vintage city bus converted into a laboratory. He eventually went on to earn an M.A. in Psychology from Hunter College while studying anxiety-related patterns of attention. During his time there, David worked as a Research Coordinator on a study investigating the emergence of anxiety in teenagers as reflected in the brain. Currently, David is interested in mood disorders as they relate to health factors such as diet and sleep, and aims to improve interventions for anxiety and depression.
Primary advisor: Evelyn Behar

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Caroline Zimmermann
health psychology program

Caroline earned her B.S. in Psychology from Fordham University in 2014. She went on to receive her M.S. in Clinical Psychology from Loyola University Maryland. She has worked as a Research Assistant at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health on community-based intervention studies for patients with hypertension and chronic kidney disease. Her research interests include stress, coping, and resilience in chronic disease self-management. She aims to translate findings and interventions to patients with various medical illnesses.
Primary advisor: Tracey Revenson

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Zara Khan
clinical program

Zara Khan received her B.S. in Behavioral Neuroscience from Quinnipiac University. She has worked as a research coordinator in the Pulmonary Unit at the Yale School of Medicine, where she analyzed cytokine levels and symptoms of anxiety and depression in a cohort with a rare lung disease. Her research interests include stress and coping, risk and resilience, adjustment to chronic illness, treatment adherence, and the development of holistic interventions.
Primary advisor: Tracey Revenson​

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Abigail Findley
clinical program

Abigail received her B.A. in Psychology and Public Policy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. After graduating, she worked as a project coordinator at the Medical University of South Carolina and then at UNC Chapel Hill, studying biopsychosocial responses to stress across development. Her broad research interests include studying neurobiological and cognitive risk profiles for depression and suicide in youth and adolescents. She also has an interest in the impact of social media use on mental and physical health among adolescents. 
Primary advisor: Tracy Dennis

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Natalia Lara Gonzalez
clinical program

​Natalia graduated from the University of New Mexico with a B.A. in Psychology. In 2017 she completed a six-month research assistantship in Thailand where she researched the association between mindfulness meditation and depression. She then worked at the UC Davis Imaging Research Center conducting research in the benefits of telehealth services for individuals with psychosis. Natalia’s broad research interests include emotion regulation, child temperament and parenting style as it relates to the development and maintenance of trauma-related and/or anxiety disorders.
​Primary advisor: Tracy Dennis

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Ash Smith
clinical program

Ash graduated from the University of Massachusetts, Boston, with a B.Sc. in Psychology. After graduating, they worked as a research coordinator at Boston Medical Center, managing on implementation science and community-centered projects to increase access to and quality of evidence-based interventions for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and examining violence exposure and minority stress in gender minority populations. Ash is currently working in the Gender-Based Violence Lab to build community partnerships and increase engagement with queer and trans people of color in New York City, as well as consult on clinical assessments for PTSD. Their current program of research leverages qualitative and quantitative methods to characterize the role of shame in relationships between minority stress and suicidality. Increasingly, Ash is interested in documenting and disseminating non-exploitative methods of engaging with multiply marginalized communities, upending hierarchal power structures that exist in academic research spaces. Looking forward, they hope to use these methods to develop and adapt interventions that reduce suicide risk and transdiagnostic behavioral health distress in trans and gender diverse communities. As they grow into their roles as researcher, clinician, and activist, Ash aspires to center the voices and needs of queer and trans people of color.
Primary advisor: Danielle Berke

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Megan Wirtz
clinical program

​Megan graduated with a B.A. in Psychology and Theatre with a minor in Latin American, Latino, and Iberian Studies from the University of Richmond, where her honors thesis examined the mediating effect of emotional intelligence on the relationship between socioeconomic status and well-being. Upon graduating, she joined the Behavioral Medicine Program at Massachusetts General Hospital as a Clinical Research Coordinator, where she assisted in research on substance use, chronic illness, and sexual and gender minority stigma. Her current research interests surround the impact of cancer diagnosis, treatment, and survivorship on identity development in adolescents and young adults.
​Primary advisor: Jennifer Ford

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Luke Nicholls
clinical program

​Luke received a BA in History from the University of Melbourne in 2014, as well as a GDip in Psychology from Monash University, before moving from Australia to the U.S. to continue his graduate studies in Psychology. He completed an MA in Psychology at the New School for Social Research, where he also worked for two years as a research assistant in the Todman Psychopathology Lab. His research interests include the mental health impacts of climate change - in particular, the potential for eco-anxiety to exacerbate psychopathology, and the motivating effects of anticipatory climate distress on pro-environmental behaviors. At the Graduate Center, he is a member of the Health, Emotion, and Relationships Lab, where he intends to build upon his prior research by exploring the social dimensions of climate change distress.
Primary advisor: Cheryl Carmichael

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Sarah Sullivan
clinical program

Sarah Sullivan, MS is a 1st year doctoral student in the Health Psychology and Clinical Science (HPCS) Program. She received her B.A. and M.S. in Mental Health Counseling from Fordham University. She has previously worked in two suicide prevention labs with Dr. Marianne Goodman at the James J. Peters VAMC and Dr. Christine Cha at Teachers College at Columbia University. Her research focuses on the etiology, assessment, and treatment of suicide risk. Her work fostered aspirations of using real-time monitoring technologies to identify suicide risk factors and inform ‘just in time’ interventions.
Primary advisor: Regina Miranda