Lab Alumni

Although all past members are valued and the BRAIN Group family is growing, only a few members are highlighted here.

Shengkai (Sunkey) Sun, Ph.D. 
Sunkey helped us in 2016 with developing our affective flexibility tasks.

Megan McFarland, M.S.
Megan is a graduate student in the Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience program. She recently completed her Masters investigating the behavioral and neural correlates of valence flexibility in self and other appraisals. She will complete her dissertation with Dr. Jacob Miller. 

Stephanie (Novotny) Whitney, Ph.D., '2025, Clinical Fellow at the University of Kansas Medical Center.
Stephanie is our most recent graduate of the Child Clinical program. Her interests broadly focus on the interactions between cognitive processes and affective regulation and the brain-body connection. She is a currently evaluating neuropsychology cases across the lifespan. 

Xiaoyuan (Reggie) Zhang, M.S., '2025
Reggie graduated in 2025 with a Masters of Public Health. His thesis used computational modeling to examine drift diffusion models of working memory tasks. After graduating May 2025, he has moved back to China and doing analytical research. 

Evan Burdette, Ph.D., Post-doctoral Fellow at Columbia University Clinic for Anxiety and Related Disorders.
Completing his Masters in 2019, Evan examined individual differences in RNT when inhibiting cognitiveand emotional (e.g., sad faces) using personal and standard face stimuli. He also has examined theintersection of RNT, fluctuations in sleep duration, and perceived coping through ecological momentary assessment collected during COVID-19. He completed his dissertation with Dr. Annette LaGreca.

Travis C. Evans, Ph.D., '2019 Assistant Professor at Auburn Univeristy 
For his master's thesis, he examined how the time-course of physiological threat responses is disrupted in social anxiety. His dissertation characterized the neural circuitry underlying implicitapproach and avoidance responses to social cues and how this circuitry contributes to socialbehaviors in daily life.

Beatriz Yepes, M.Sc., Senior neuropsychological tester and cognitive behavioral coach.
Beatriz was instrumental in assisting our investigation of Valence Flexibility across Development from 2019-2021. 

Katherine Walukevich-Dienst Ph.D., Assistant Professor at the Univeristy of Washington
Katherine helped keep things running smoothly between 2014-2016.

Ilana Seager van Dyk, Ph.D., Senior lecturer at Massey University's Wellington Campus 
Ilana helped establish the BRAIN Group in 2012-2014.

Cassidy Martens ‘25
Cassidy completed a Senior Honors Thesis examining gender differences in cognitive and emotional flexibility using a verbal generation task. She is completing a post-bac program in Eugene, Oregon.  

Jillian DiMonda ‘24
Jillian completed a Senior Honors Thesis examining individual differences in heart rate variability (HRV) using RMSDD across rest and fear learning acquired behaviorally. She has plans to attend graduate school. 

Abby Snipes ‘23
Abby completed a Senior Honors Thesis examining the heart rate variability using high frequency HRV across rest and fear learning acquired during an MRI experiment. After completing a research assistant position at the National Institute of Drug Abuse in Baltimore, Abby will attend Eastern Virginia Medical School. 

Mary Kate Ciolko ‘23
Mary Kate completed a Senior Honors Thesis examining reaction time and heart rate changes associated with approaching and avoiding happy, angry, and neutral faces under threat and non-threat conditions. She has plans to attend medical school. 

Jaclyn Foster ‘21
Jaclyn completed a Senior Honors Thesis examining the strategies used to exercise cognitive vs. affective flexibility in the Flexible Item Selection Task. She attended law school and specializes in estate planning and tax law.