People

Jochen is our brilliant go-to Neuroscience Elf. He primarily works as a  Senior Data Analyst at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, one of the main contributors to the ISIC Archive. For us, he brings his all-around elfin magic and special expertise in mathematics, programming and prior work experience to assist with data analysis and visualization. His prior work experience include working as the senior imaging analyst at the SCN lab at Columbia University, where he continued to develop NeuroElf, a Matlab toolbox for fMRI data analysis and visualization, as well as working in the Core Facility of the Interdisciplinary Center for Clinical Research at the RWTH Aachen in Germany, and a customer support agent for Brain Innovation, the makers of BrainVoyager QX.

Email: reuma.gadassipolack@yale.edu

Reuma received her doctoral degree in Psychology from Bar-Ilan University, and her M.A. in Educational and Clinical Child Psychology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Reuma’s research focuses on the affective and interpersonal aspects of depression and personality disorders. She is currently working on projects investigating role of emotion regulation in the development of depression and other disorders. To approach these questions she uses various methods, including cognitive tasks, experience-sampling methods, and brain imaging.

Email: maria.crouch@yale.edu

Maria Christina Crouch (Deg Hit’an and Coahuiltecan), PhD, is a clinical-community psychologist and an NIAAA F32 postdoctoral research fellow at Yale University. Her program of research is focused on the intersection of trauma-informed care, evidence-based practices, and practice-based evidence (Indigenous approaches) to address alcohol and drug issues, trauma, and related health impacts of social determinants among American Indian and Alaska Native communities from a cultural, strengths-based approach.  

Email: iya.hanik@yale.edu

Iya is a full-time research assistant in the CAN lab. She graduated from Temple University with a double major in Neuroscience (B.S.) and Psychology (B.A.) in 2019. She has previously worked on decision making with a focus on impulsivity along with substances of abuse’s effect on white matter tracts. Her interests include the neural mechanisms of addictive behaviors and clinical intervention methods.

Maya John is a full-time postgraduate associate in the CAN lab. She graduated from Yale University with a B.S. in psychology in 2023. In undergrad, she worked at the CAN lab to help develop digital clinical interventions targeting symptoms of craving, anxiety, and depression. For her senior thesis, Maya ran an RCT of a single-session self-compassion and mindfulness-based intervention that she developed. In the future, Maya hopes to pursue a graduate degree in clinical psychology, combining clinical practice and digital intervention development.

Savannah Eastler is a sophomore in Pauli Murray college studying Cognitive Science. She is interested in meditation, sports psychology, lucid dreaming, and the hard problem of consciousness. In her free time, she enjoys rock climbing and cross stitching.

Abigail Tarekegn is a sophomore in Branford College majoring in Cognitive Science. Her research interests include mindfulness, emotion regulation, communication, and cultural psychology. In her spare time, she enjoys playing the cello and reading.

Maggie Mae was a full time research assistant in the CAN lab. She received her B.A. in Psychology from Rutgers University in 2005. She is currently pursuing her PhD in Neuroscience.

Ross earned his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Pennsylvania State University in 2015. He is currently an Advanced Fellow in Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center (MIRECC) at the VA Connecticut Healthcare System and Yale University. His research is focused on identifying neurobiological and behavioral mechanisms involved in the maintenance and treatment of addiction.

Shosuke was a full time research assistant in the CAN lab. He graduated from UCLA with a B.S. in Neuroscience in 2014. He is currently pursuing his Ph.D. at Emory University. 

Reuben was a full time research assistant in the CAN lab. He received his degree in cognitive science from Calhoun College at Yale in 2014. He is interested in the psychology of living well – how the mind assigns ethical and moral value and produces feelings of meaningfulness and fulfillment. He practices meditation and hopes to study its potential use in cultivating mental habits conducive to human flourishing.  He is also interested in how emotion regulation techniques may be skillfully implemented in light of heuristics for evaluating experience like the “ends-and-peaks” rule. 

Joe earned his MD and PhD in Neuroscience from the Medical University of South Carolina. Broadly, Joe’s research focuses on pairing brain stimulation techniques with brain imaging techniques in order to map and modulate the aberrant neural networks associated with refractory psychiatric and neurological symptoms.

Hailey is an Neuroscience major in Davenport College (class of 2020). As an undergraduate research assistant, she has worked on a meta-analysis that models how cue reactivity and craving affect treatment outcomes. Now, she is working on a study that examines the efficacy of brief training on ability to regulate craving and subsequent substance use. Broadly, Hailey is interested in neural mechanisms behind disorders and disabilities and intends on pursuing medical school.

Email: jessica.mollick@yale.edu

Jessica is interested in the brain mechanisms involved in learning and decision making, and the role that neuromodulatory systems such as dopamine play in these tasks. Her research focuses on computational neural network models of the basal ganglia, amygdala and dopamine system, with a particular focus on expanding those models to look at the role of dopamine and the basal ganglia in negative valence learning and understanding the brain mechanisms that drive prediction errors for worse than expected outcomes. She has applied these models to a variety of learning tasks. Her empirical research focuses on fMRI, using a conditioned inhibition experiment with juice rewards that draws on worse than expected prediction errors, and involves applying temporal-differences learning and neural network models to this experiment, as well as a pain learning task, to assess the fit of these different models to fMRI data in dopaminergic and subcortical regions. She is interested in comparing the fit of different models with empirical data, and looking at how evaluation of reward and punishment outcomes relates to addictive behaviors.

Email: rob.palmer@yale.edu

Rob is a medical student at Yale (class of 2021) who’s helping with the CAN Lab’s research on mindfulness and CBT interventions for craving regulation in people trying to reduce or quit smoking. He has previously contributed to research on ibogaine and 5-MeO-DMT for the treatment of concerning opioid use as well as on research at the University of Southern California that involved fMRI and EEG imaging of long-term meditators. He hopes that he will–before he graduates from medical school–help conduct research that explores the effects of mindfulness interventions on implicit bias.

Taylor received her B.S. in Psychology from Yale (class of 2021) and is currently a master’s student at the Yale School of Public Health in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences. She has worked on a variety of projects at CANLab, including an ongoing clinical trial testing the efficacy of regulation of craving training on heavy drinking in young adults, as well as a meta-analysis examining the effects of negative emotions on eating and weight. Her research interests include neural mechanisms behind disordered and addictive behaviors, with specific focus on eating and substance use.

Audrey Edelman is a full-time Postgraduate Associate for both Dr. Hedy Kober’s Clinical & Affective Neuroscience Lab and Dr. Jutta Joormann’s Affect Regulation & Cognition Lab. Audrey graduated with a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Simmons University in 2019 and joined the CAN Lab in spring of 2021. She primarily works on coordinating an NIH-funded fMRI study which investigates the impact of maternal depression history on child emotion regulation. Her main research interests include child emotion regulation, risk factors for internalizing disorders, and psychopathology in the family context. Audrey hopes to go on to pursue a graduate degree in clinical psychology to continue studying these topics.

Jennifer is a junior in Trumbull College majoring in Cognitive Science on the pre-med track. She has previously contributed to research involving spinal cord injuries and neural regeneration. Her current research interests include craving regulation, substance use disorder interventions, mindfulness, and emotional regulation. 

Astra is a senior in Benjamin Franklin college majoring in Neuroscience on the pre-med track. She has previously contributed to research involving reward prediction errors in substance use disorders as well as the role of mindfulness interventions. Currently, she is working on her senior thesis project with the CAN lab looking at the neural correlates of wins and losses in individuals with substance use or gambling disorders.
Outside of the lab she enjoys dancing with Yaledancers and serves on the board of Black Pre Health at Yale. 

Email: daniel.wang.dw758@yale.edu

Daniel is a full-time research assistant in the CAN lab. He graduated from UC Berkeley with a B.A. in Cognitive Science in 2019. He has primary research experience utilizing sparse coding neural networks to up-sample computational fluid dynamics simulations, and he has research experience with qualitative psychology research studying how narrative identity is formed in adolescents and is influenced by socio-contextual factors. His interests include understanding the neural mechanisms behind addictive behaviors, emotional regulation, and development of clinical treatments.