My clinical and early research training was in severe mood disorders. Since 2006, decision processes in late-life suicidal behavior have been my principal focus. I am interested in how the brain makes decisions in a dynamic environment. My career goal is to explain vulnerability to suicidal behavior in terms of individual differences in dynamic decision processes.
I received my Bachelor of Arts in psychology from Colgate University in 2010 and subsequently earned a PhD in Developmental Psychopathology and Clinical Sciences from the University of Minnesota in 2016. I completed my clinical internship at Northwestern University, and worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health prior to joining the Dombrovski Lab. My program of research integrates longitudinal, neurobiological, and psychometric methods to identify and understand the mechanisms that contribute to variation in maladaptive personality traits, including antagonism and negative affect. I am also interested in issues related to psychiatric nosology, and have conducted research examining whether hierarchical, dimensional trait models can effectively address limitations of the current categorical diagnostic system.
I received my Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Hunter College in 2012 and earned a PhD in Clinical Psychology from Binghamton University in 2020. I completed my clinical internship at the UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital before completing an NIMH T32-funded postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh. I combine electroencephalography, computational modeling, and EMA to improve the understanding and treatment of suicidal thoughts and behaviors. I am particularly interested in elucidating how alterations in value-based decision-making contribute to suicide risk.
I completed my graduate training through the NIH MD/PhD program, where I received my DPhil from the University of Oxford in 2018 and MD from the University of California, San Diego in 2020. My DPhil mentors were Karen Berman at the National Institutes of Health and Tim Behrens at the University of Oxford. I studied the effect of dopamine on the neural coding of reward-based learning and decision-making using behavioral modeling of reward-guided decision-making and dopamine PET neuroimaging measures. I moved to Pittsburgh in 2020 to start residency training in psychiatry. I started working in Dr. Dombrovski’s lab in July 2021 as part of the Psychiatry Research Program, which allows for protected research time during residency. My project in the lab is characterizing the link between explore-exploit decision-making and suicidal behavioral in individuals with late life depression using behavioral modeling and fMRI.
My research aims to characterize neurocomputational mechanisms that contribute to maladaptive decision-making in people with personality disorders. I use computational reinforcement learning models of behavior in conjunction with fMRI, ECG, EDA, and eye tracking to understand these decision processes and to elucidate neural and physiological substrates. Supported by a T32 research fellowship, I moved to Pittsburgh in 2023 to complete my postdoctoral training in the Decision Neuroscience and Psychopathology lab. My research in the lab focuses on understanding how personality traits modulate the recruitment of brain networks involved in resolving the explore-exploit dilemma. Prior to joining DNPL, I completed my PhD in clinical psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. There, I worked in the Developmental Personality Neuroscience lab under the direction of Dr. Michael Hallquist. My dissertation research focused on understanding the learning mechanisms involved in affect-based impulsivity, particularly for individuals reporting a greater number of borderline personality disorder symptoms. My master’s research examined the role of physiological coregulation in interpersonal dysfunction among romantic couples oversampled for personality pathology. I received my B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis with a major in Psychological and Brain Sciences and minors in Mathematics and Political Science. During my undergraduate studies, I worked as a research assistant in the St. Louis Personality and Aging Network lab (PI: Dr. Tom Oltmanns) and completed my undergraduate psychology honors thesis in the Attitude and Decision Making lab (PI: Dr. Alan Lambert).
I began working with Drs. Dombrovski and Szanto in 2008 while completing a BS in psychology at the University of Pittsburgh. Currently, I am the research coordinator for the DNPL and for the Program in Cognitive Affective Neuroscience. My research interests include the effects of emotional dysregulation, psychopathology, and trauma on cognitive functions such as decision making and emotional information processing. Some of my research has focused on using psychophysiological methods, such as pupillary reactivity and fMRI, to study cognitive biases in depression and emotional reactivity in psychopathology.
I received a BS in Physics from Juniata College in 2008 and a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Minnesota in 2015. For my thesis, I studied deliberations of rats on a neuroeconomic decision task called the spatial delay discounting task and how their choices impacted the firing of neurons in the dorsal hippocampus. Since then, I've worked as a Postdoctoral Associate at the University of Pittsburgh for Mac Hooks and Nathan Urban. My research in the Dombrovski lab focuses on the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and its interactions with hippocampus. I am currently analyzing fMRI from the clock task, developed by Michael Frank, using a novel deconvolution technique developed jointly by Michael Hallquist and Alexandre Dombrovski.
I received my B.S. in Mathematics and Molecular Biology from University of California, San Diego and later received my M.S. in Counseling from San Diego State University. Previously, I have worked as a mental health therapist before transitioning into psychological research to better combine my clinical experience with my quantitative background. Currently, I am the Multisite Coordinator for our study Momentum, which combines multiple methods (behavioral, physiological, neuroimaging) to explore the mechanisms behind mood dynamics and affective instability. Broadly, my research interests lie in investigating the maladaptive social decision making seen in Borderline Personality Disorder.
I graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a BHA in Art and Psychology, and received my MA in Art Therapy and Counseling from Seton Hill University. My professional experience has largely consisted of providing treatment in the community, acquiring skills that would eventually translate to my clinical role within the lab. The development and course of personality pathology is a personal research interest, with an eye toward finding solutions for individuals and families struggling with mental illness.
A native of Pittsburgh, I graduated from Temple University and the University of Pennsylvania with degrees in Communication, focusing on interpersonal behavior and social interaction. Over the years at Western Psych, I have been involved in the research of various disorders, including adult unipolar and bipolar depression, substance use, personality, and sleep disorders. I am intrigued by the intersection of the private and public self, and research as a social event.
I received my B.S. in Psychology from the University of Pittsburgh in 2019. Previously, I have worked in a cognitive lab studying causal learning and decision making and a clinical/developmental lab studying interventions for children at risk for maladaptive psychosocial outcomes. I am the DNPL Research Programmer and my job includes data management, preprocessing, and analysis.
I received my BA in Psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2021. Previously, I worked in dissemination and implementation research in low-resourced and ethnic minority communities and pediatric neuropsychology. As a Research Specialist at the DNPL, I am now involved in collecting behavioral, fMRI, and EMA data, conducting clinical interviews, and database management. My research interests include empirically-derived dimensional and hierarchical taxonomies of psychopathology, trait models of personality pathology, and mechanisms underlying maladaptive decision-making.
I received my BA in Psychology from the University of Pittsburgh in 2023. I have been working as an undergraduate on various studies with the DNPL since May of 2020. Currently, my primary responsibilities as a Research Associate at DNPL involve collecting/monitoring behavioral, fMRI, and EMA data, conducting clinical assessments, and database management. My main research interests lie in mood disorders, personality pathology and emotion dysregulation/aggression and their impact on close relationships.
I received my B.S. in Psychology from Duke University in 2023. I previously worked in a clinical psychology lab that focused on the early detection of autism in young children and in a developmental psychology lab that examined peer relationships, friendship beliefs, and well-being among college students. I currently work as a Research Specialist in the DNPL, and my primary duties involve collecting behavioral, fMRI, EEG, and EMA data, conducting clinical assessments, and database management. My main research interests include cognitive processes in individuals with severe psychopathology, such as borderline personality disorder, psychosis, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
I graduated from Rutgers University in May of 2023 with a degree in Cell Biology and Neuroscience. I joined the lab in July 2023 and am currently the Coordinator for the PANDA study. My research interests include the role learning pathways contribute to suicidal ideation, personality, anxiety, and using brain imaging. In my free time I enjoy playing boardgames and working out.
Maria is currently a PhD candidate at University of North Carolina Charlotte
Jon is currently a System Engineer at Cook MyoSite
Dr. Szücs is currently a posdoctoral scholar at the University of Singapore, Family Medicine. She is also an award-winning author.
Laura is currently a PhD student in the Virginia Consortium Program in Clinical Psychology.
Jiazhou is currently a PhD student in the UCL-NIMH Joint Doctoral Training Program in Neuroscience.
Polina is a Senior Manager at Enterprise Analytics.
Shane is now a Software Engineer at Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory.
Tanya is currently pursuing a PhD in Clinical Psychology at the University of Houston.
Shreya is currently pursuing a PhD in Clinical Psychology at the University of North Texas.
Dr. Brown is a faculty member at Emory College.