Ph.D Students
Paige Amormino
Concentration: Lifespan Cognitive Neuroscience
Mentor: Abigail Marsh
304 White-Gravenor
Email: pa546@georgetown.edu
Paige is a graduate student in the Lifespan Cognitive Neuroscience concentration. She graduated with honors from Princeton University in 2019, where she majored in Psychology. She then worked as a research coordinator at the University of Rochester with Dr. David Dodell-Feder where she studied the effects of reading fiction on social and moral cognition. She currently studies the intersection of altruism, morality, and social decision-making.
Marla Dressel
Concentration: Lifespan Cognitive Neuroscience + Cognitive Science
Mentor: Abigail Marsh
304 White-Gravenor
Email: md1864@georgetown.edu
Marla is a Ph.D. student working under the mentorship of Dr. Abigail Marsh and joined the graduate program in 2022. She earned a BSc and Honours BSc in Psychology from the University of Groningen, as well as a Research MSc in Psychology from the University of Amsterdam, majoring in Cognitive Neurosciences and Psychological Methods. During her master’s, she worked as a Research Intern at the Social Brain Lab led by Dr. Christian Keysers and Dr. Valeria Gazzola, and during her thesis, at the lab of Dr. David Amodio at NYU & UvA, where she most recently studied the role of adaptive empathy in prejudice. Marla is deeply fascinated by the social neuroscience of empathy and its role in mental disorders like psychopathy, which she will specifically focus on during her Ph.D. She is also eager to support her research with state-of-the-art methods, including computational modeling and machine learning, as well as Open Science.
Cynthia Fioriti
Concentration: Human Development and Public Policy
Mentor: Ian Lyons
313 White-Gravenor
Email: cmf302@georgetown.edu
Cynthia is in the Human Development and Public Policy program under the mentorship of Ian Lyons. She received her Bachelors of Science in Psychological & Brain Sciences, with concentrations in Neuroscience and Computer Science, from Catholic University in 2019. After graduation, she went on to work at the National Institutes of Health where she studied the effects of transcranial magnetic stimulation on episodic and procedural memory networks. Cynthia is interested in the functional and structural representations of mathematical learning in the brain, and how these systems translate into behavior and cognition.
Daniel Holzman
Concentration: Lifespan Cognitive Neuroscience
Mentor: Adam Green
305 White-Gravenor
Email: dh1097@georgetown.edu
Danny joined the Graduate Program in 2021 to work under the mentorship of Adam Green in the Laboratory for Relational Cognition. He received his BA in Cognitive Science from the University of California, Berkeley in 2015. Before Georgetown, Danny worked in the neurotechnology industry where he researched the effects of noninvasive brain stimulation on improving motor and cognitive functions. His research broadly focuses on using neuroimaging techniques to better understand the neural mechanisms of higher-level cognition such as learning, creativity, and problem-solving, and different methods to enhance these cognitive processes.
Yeon Sik Jang
Concentration: Human Development and Public Policy
Mentor: Jessica Chiang
311A White-Gravenor
Email: yj238@georgetown.edu
Yeon joined the Graduate Program in 2021 to work under the mentorship of Jessica Chiang. Prior to Georgetown, he was a research coordinator at the Center for Autism and Related Disorders in the Kennedy Krieger Institute, where he was involved in several research projects on the Autism Waiver, anxiety and ASD, anxiety treatment, and psychiatric crisis. He received his BA in Psychology from Carleton College and an MA in Psychology from the University of Chicago. His research interests include exploring the effects of early life stress on health outcomes, examining risk in vulnerable and underserved populations, and translating and adapting findings for policy.
Matthew Leitao
Concentration: Human Development and Public Policy + MPP
Mentor: Kostadin Kushlev
311A White-Gravenor
Email: mrl118@georgetown.edu
Matthew recently joined the Graduate Program in 2019 working under Kostadin Kushlev. Before arriving, he received his Master’s degree at California State University, Northridge with his research focusing on the interactions of people with technology. His current research lies at the intersection of psychology and technology with his interests seeking to understand the social perception of technology, and the effects of relationships mediated through technology.
Raeanne Martell
Concentration: Lifespan Cognitive Neuroscience
Mentor: Ian Lyons
313 White-Gravenor
Email: rnm48@georgetown.edu
Raeanne joined the Graduate Program in 2021 to work under the mentorship of Ian Lyons. Prior to coming to Georgetown, she earned both her bachelor’s degree in Cognitive Science with a focus in cognitive psychology, and her master’s degree in Teaching with a focus in elementary education from the University of Virginia. Her research interests focus on better understanding the role mathematical techniques used in classrooms – from timed activities to hands-on scaffolding measures – play in mathematical performance among young learners.
Kibum Moon
Concentration: Human Development and Public Policy
Mentor: Kostadin Kushlev
311-A White-Gravenor
Email: km1735@georgetown.edu
Kibum Moon is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Psychology at Georgetown University, where he works under Dr. Kostadin Kushlev. His prior educational background includes a double major in Psychology and Science Technology Studies for his bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in Clinical and Counseling Psychology from Korea University. In addition to his academic pursuits, Kibum has also held a position as a data scientist, where he worked on various projects to promote college students’ well-being through machine learning and deep learning algorithms. His research interests focus on investigating the effect of digital technology on well-being, specifically within the context of daily life, and developing interventions to improve well-being. He is also dedicated to finding ways to integrate data science techniques within psychological science to enhance research capabilities.
Naomi Nero
Concentration: Lifespan Cognitive Neuroscience
Mentor: Abigail Marsh
304 White-Gravenor
Email: nn444@georgetown.edu
Naomi, a Patrick Healy Fellow, joined the Graduate Program in 2022 in the Lifespan Cognitive Neuroscience concentration under the mentorship of Dr. Abigail Marsh. She earned her B.A. as a dual Honors-Psychology and Neuroscience major from the University of Chicago in 2022. She completed an undergraduate Honors Thesis under the guidance of Dr. Jean Decety investigating gender differences in psychopathy and the relation to Borderline Personality Disorder and violent crime conviction. Her research interests include understanding psychopathic and antisocial behavior through brain imaging and behavioral methods.
Mafalda Pena
Concentration: Lifespan Cognitive Neuroscience
Mentor: Adam Green
305 White-Gravenor
Email: mcp158@georgetown.edu
Douglas Piper
Concentration: Human Development and Public Policy
Mentor: Rachel Barr
413 White-Gravenor
Email: djp111@georgetown.edu
Doug joined the Graduate Program to work with Rachel Barr in 2021. Before joining the program, he was a lab coordinator at the Temple Infant and Child Lab working with the Playful Learning Landscapes Action Network. He received bachelor’s degrees in Psychology and Music from the University of Michigan in 2019. His research focuses on children’s relationships with screen media and how those relationships impact children’s interactions with the world around them.
Adnan Rashid
Concentration: Lifespan Cognitive Neuroscience
Mentor: Chandan Vaidya
401 White-Gravenor
Email: ar1652@georgetown.edu
Adnan joined the Graduate Program in 2020 to work under the guidance of Dr. Chandan Vaidya in the Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory. He graduated from University of Maryland College Park with a B.S. in Physiology and Neurobiology. Before coming to Georgetown, he worked in the Laboratory of Cognition & Emotion and Developmental Social Cognitive Neuroscience Lab at University of Maryland, where he studied the effects of anxiety, joint attention, and social-emotional paradigms. He is interested in prototype and exemplar learning and identifying the dimensions of executive control that span across psychiatric diagnosis such as Autism Spectrum Disorder, ADHD, mood disorders, and anxiety disorders.
Raimundo Salas
Concentration: Human Development and Public Policy
Mentor: Fathali Moghaddam
311A White-Gravenor
Email: rs2078@georgetown.edu
Raimundo joined the Graduate Program in 2020 to work under the mentorship of Fathali Moghaddam. He received bachelor’s degrees in Biochemistry from the University of Chile and Theology from the Catholic University of Chile. While Raimundo worked in the Jesuit Migrant Service of Chile, he developed his migration and intergroup relations interests. Hence, his research focuses on the intersection of psychology, public policies, and immigration.
Mike Slipenkyj
Concentration: Human Development and Public Policy
Mentor: Ian Lyons
313 White-Gravenor
Email: mss335@georgetown.edu
Mike joined the Psychology department in 2019 to work with Ian Lyons. He received his Bachelors of science with an honors specialization in psychology from the University of Western Ontario. After graduating Mike worked in the Numerical Cognition Laboratory, focusing on the study of symbolic number representation in children and adults using fMRI. Mike is broadly interested in the development of symbolic number processing and how these skills relate to mathematics ability. He is also interested in understanding how other factors (e.g. computational context, math anxiety) influence symbolic number representation and how cognitive neuroscience can be used to improve educational policy.
Sam Steimle
Concentration: Human Development and Public Policy
Mentors: Rachel Barr and Rebecca Ryan
303 White-Gravenor
Email: ss4352@georgetown.edu
Sam joined the graduate program in 2019 to work under the mentorship of Rebecca Ryan and Rachel Barr. After receiving her B.S. in Psychology from Fordham University, she worked as a research assistant at MDRC. There, she implemented and evaluated social programs related to children and families in low-income communities. Her current research interests involve continuing to analyze the unique stressors that affect this vulnerable population, and exploring interventions that promote positive child development and outcomes via a two-generation approach.
Kristina Vlahovic
Concentration: Human Development and Public Policy
Mentor: Rebecca Ryan
303 White-Gravenor
Email: kv259@georgetown.edu
Anna Wright
Concentration: Human Development and Public Policy
Mentor: Anna Johnson
303 White-Gravenor
Email: amw382@georgetown.edu
Jinli Wu
Concentration: Human Development and Public Policy
Mentor: Yulia Chentsova-Dutton
311A White-Gravenor
Email: jw1935@georgetown.edu