UMass & Harvard Medical School

Post-Doc, Psychology

Other Affiliations: University of Massachusetts, Boston, Psychology

About

I am currently in my post-doctoral training with Dr. Celia Moore at UMass Boston in the HORIZON center (Healthy Options, Research, Interventions & Community Organizing Center).
I am also a shared post-doc with Dr. Edward Tronick at Harvard Medical School/Children's Hospital Boston.
I was named a Harvard University Sackler Scholar Fellow in Psychobiology (2011-2012).

I attained my PhD in Social Psychology at Brandeis University (2011). My advisors were Professor Arthur Wingfield, Neuroscience Director of the Volen Center for Complex Systems and Dr. Nicolas Rohleder in Health psychology.

My dissertation investigated physiological correlates related to moral aversion to harm and the influence of social evaluative stress on socio-moral judgments. I was awarded the APA Dissertation Award (2010) and the Brandeis Provost Award (2010) for this work titled, "Moral Certainty under Stress: Psychological and Physiological Stress on Socio-Moral Judgments"

My research interests include:
• Autonomic nervous system monitoring, including cardiovascular and neuroendocrine parameters.
• Psychophysiological processes in the development of emotion regulation and social engagement, including the etiology of pathophysiological disorders.
• Social class and health disparities, resilience, etiology and epidemiology of disease related to social processes.
• Stress associated with intergroup interactions, (e.g., challenge and threat appraisal processes).
• Social emotions in healthy and pathological populations (e.g., shame, pride, empathy) in shaping physiological responsiveness, appraisal and behavior (e.g., social identity, self-esteem, bias, moral judgments, relationship formation and maintenance).

    During graduate school, for several years I was a research assistant with Dr. Wendy Berry Mendes at the Harvard Health and Psychophysiology Lab. Also, during that time, I was a research assistant with Dr. Tamar Mendelson at the Harvard School of Public Health (2006).