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Lab Director
Daphne J. Holt, MD, PhD received her MD and PhD from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. She then went on to complete her clinical training at the MGH/McLean Psychiatry Residency Program and a fellowship in clinical research and neuroimaging at the MGH Department of Psychiatry and the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging. She has been a faculty member of the MGH Psychiatry Department since 2004, and is an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School. In addition to overseeing her lab, she also serves as the Co-Director of the MGH Psychosis Clinical and Research Program (PCRP) and the Director of the Resilience and Prevention Program (RAPP), a research program focused on developing and testing interventions to increase the resilience of youth with risk factors for developing psychiatric illnesses.
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Post-Doctoral Fellows
Jacqueline A. Clauss, MD, PhD received her MD and her PhD from the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. She completed her adult psychiatry training at MGH/McLean and a fellowship in child and adolescent psychiatry at MGH/McLean. She currently serves as the Medical Director of the Resilience Evaluation-Social Emotional Training (RE-SET) Program in the MGH Department of Psychiatry. Her PhD research focused on the neural basis of inhibited temperament and differences in brain activation during anticipation of social stimuli. Her current research interests are in using neuroimaging and biological markers to understand the basis of risk and resilience for psychiatric disorders.
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Faye McKenna, PhD received her doctorate in Biomedical Imaging from New York University. Her PhD research focused on using advanced diffusion MRI techniques to quantify microstructural and inflammatory changes in the brain in those with psychotic disorders. She is now applying multi-modal neuroimaging to investigate the underlying neural and psychological mechanisms of social isolation and loneliness in those with severe mental illness.
Victoria Choate Hasler, PhD is an Instructor in Psychology at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical school, and a researcher in the Resilience and Prevention and Prevention Program. She received her doctorate in Clinical psychology at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and completed her APA internship at Massachusetts Mental Health Center, Harvard Medical School. She completed her fellowship at the VA Boston Healthcare Center. She has worked clinically, administratively, and in research at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Cambridge Health Alliance, and now Massachusetts General Hospital. Her research and clinical work has centered on using evidence-based strategies to implement early intervention and prevention transdiagnostically and for psychotic spectrum disorders, with the hopes of enhancing resilience and wellbeing early on to buffer against risk. She has also studied biological bases of psychotic illnesses, and addressing racial and ethnic disparities in access to care for young people with psychotic disorders.
Taryn Berman, PhD received her doctorate in Cognitive Neuroscience from McGill University. Her PhD research focused on the neural mechanisms of decision-making for present and future pain. She is now examining the factors that impact personal space in first degree relatives of those with psychosis.
Clinical Research Coordinators
Daniel S. Johnson, BS received his degree in Psychology from Northeastern University with minors in Behavioral Neuroscience and Theatre in 2020. As part of his degree, Daniel completed a co-op in the CARE lab at McLean Hospital where he studied urgency, cognitive bias, and anhedonia. His current work at MGH focuses on studying biopsychosocial factors related to loneliness and Isolation in those with psychotic disorders.
Francesca de Marneffe, BS received her degrees in Clinical Psychology and Sociology from Tufts University in 2022. As an undergraduate, Francesca worked in a social psychology lab investigating how persuasion techniques can be used to incentivize interracial dialogue and reduce implicit bias. After graduating, she worked as a psychology assistant in a non-profit clinic in Madrid for people with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. She is mainly interested in the social determinants of mental health, specifically the impact of trauma and other early childhood experiences on the development of psychosis. At MGH, Francesca is coordinating an NIH-funded study exploring the neurological, physiological, psychological, and social correlates of loneliness and social isolation in healthy controls and individuals with psychotic disorders.
Christian Burrell, BS received his degrees in Psychology and Clinical Neuroscience from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 2023. While working on his degree, Christian worked in a social cognitive affective neuroscience lab in which he built novel AI systems to predict social anxiety disorder by using natural language processing and machine learning paradigms. In his summers, Christian has worked at the University of Pennsylvania where he was involved in a study that used TMS to treat patients with BPD, and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he did computational modeling on a study involving punishment. At MGH, Christian is coordinating a neuroimaging study measuring the neural responses to personal space intrusions with a 7T MRI.
Mitchell Chan, BS received his degree in Psychology from University of California, Berkeley in 2023. Prior to joining the ESN lab, Mitchell focused on research topics related to language acquisition in both non-autistic and autistic populations, concept formation, and the effects of overconfidence on behavior. In the future, he is interested in combining his prior work with that of the ESN lab’s to study the formation of overconfident worldviews that may promote social isolation. and how social isolation can increase risk for developing serious mental illnesses.
Molly Hart, BS received her degree in Cognitive Science from the University of Alabama in 2023, where she developed a strong interest in mental health research from an interdisciplinary perspective. In addition to exploring the mind-brain connection, her studies focused on the interplay between environment, inner experience, and behavior. While conducting undergraduate research in the Cognition, Brain, and Autism Lab, she analyzed the relationship between attentional control and functional connectivity of brain networks. Currently, at MGH, Molly is coordinating a clinical trial of a group-based, mindfulness-focused behavioral intervention for college students with transdiagnostic risk for psychiatric disorders. This project aims to provide new insights into the psychological and neural effects of resilience training.
Senior Program Manager
Leah B. Namey, MPH earned her master's in public health from Boston University's School of Public Health. She is the Sr. Program and Research Manager for the MGH Psychosis Clinical and Research Program (PCRP), which encompasses the First Episode and Early Psychosis Program (FEPP) and the Resilience and Prevention Program (RAPP). In addition, Leah oversees and manages the implementation of numerous clinical trials and manages the program's financial portfolio.
Faculty
Nicole DeTore, PhD is an Assistant Professor in Psychology at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School and the Director of Research for the Resilience and Prevention Program. She received her doctoral degree in clinical psychology at Alliant University, and completed her APA internship at the UCSD and the San Diego VA. She completed a three-year research fellowship at Boston University focusing on psychosis-related research. She has additionally worked as a researcher and clinician at UCLA, Harbor UCLA, and Drexel University. Her research focuses on developing preventative behavioral interventions for transdiagnostically at-risk populations, as well as first episode psychosis, schizophrenia, cognition, psychosocial outcomes, and severe mental illnesses.
Louis Vinke, PhD received his doctorate in Computational Neuroscience from Boston University. His PhD research focused on how visuocortical activity varies across relative and absolute feature dimensions, and employing adaptation as a tool to measure complex population response functions. Currently, he is studying how non-verbal processes important for social communication and motivation differ between clinical and healthy populations, how these processes are supported by basic visual processing, and whether various functional neuroimaging measures can serve as objective markers of these deficits, while also contributing to a systems-level understanding of social behavior.
Roger Tootell, PhD, Associate Professor of Radiology, HMS, is an internationally recognized authority on the function and organization of the primate visual system. In addition, he was an early pioneer and developer of functional MRI methods. His previous work has investigated a wide range of functions of the visual system, including visual attention and motion perception, which are two functions of interest relevant to his current focus on investigating the neural basis of personal space. He and Dr. Holt have been collaborating since 2009, focusing on the roles of lower-level features, attention/motion, and emotional learning in face processing, interpersonal distance in healthy subjects and in psychosis.
Alumni, Collaborators, & Associated Programs
Alumni
Emily A. Boeke, BS - PhD student in Cognition & Perception, New York University
Brittany S. Cassidy, PhD - Post-Doctoral Fellow, Indiana University
Garth Coombs III, BS - PhD student in Cognition, Brain, & Behavior, Harvard University
Stephanie N. DeCross, BA - PhD student in Clinical Psychology, Harvard University
Jessica Mow, BA - PhD student in Clinical Psychology, Boston University
Logan Leathem, BA, BS - PhD student in Clinical Psychology, University of California Los Angeles (UCLA)
Olga Terechina, MD - Psychiatry Resident, Berkshire Medical Center
Lauri Tuominen, MD PhD - Assistant Professor, University of Ottawa, The Royal Ottawa Institute for Mental Health Research
Richard Vettermann - MD student, Technical University Dresden, Germany
Maeve Ward, BA - MD student, Sidney Kimmel Medical College
Rick P. F. Wolthusen - MD student, Technical University Dresden, Germany; Co-founder, On the Move eV
Yushan (Wisteria) Deng, BA - PhD student in Clinical Psychology, Yale University
Amritha Harikumar, MA - PhD student in Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, Georgia State University
Caroline Kale, BA - MSW student, New York University (NYU)
Samantha Hines, BA - MA student, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Sarah Zapetis, BS - PhD student in Clinical Psychology, University of Southern California
Yolanda I. Whitaker, BS - Research Coordinator at Mount Sinai Hospital
Jordan Zimmerman, BS - PhD student in Clinical Psychology, Harvard University
Clayton Jeffrey, BS - MS student, McGill University
Tracy Barbour, MD - Medical Director of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Clinic in the MGH Psychiatry Department
Gwang-Won Kim, PhD - Chonnam National University Medical School and Hospital, Gwangju, Korea
Zahra (Mona) Nasiriavanaki, MD - Neurology Resident at Cleveland Clinic Florida
Rachel Sussman, BS - Health Data Science S.M. student at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
McKain Williams, BS - Senior Clinical Research Assistant at Oregon Health & Science University; Founder, Unstable Bagel
Drew Coman, PhD - Assistant Professor in Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at MGH and Instructor at HMS
Katherine Dokholyan, BS - Clinical Research Coordinator in the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital
Elizabeth Eberlin, MA - PhD student in Clinical Psychology, Michigan State University
Collaborators
Randy L. Buckner, PhD
Benjamin K. Brent, MD, MS
Corinne Cather, PhD
Bradford C. Dickerson, MD
Amy H. Farabaugh, PhD
Maurizio Fava, MD
Oliver Freudenreich, MD
Newfei Ho, PhD
Gina R. Kuperberg, MD
Hesheng Liu, PhD
Joseph Mandeville, PhD
Mohammed R. Milad, PhD
Maren B. Nyer, PhD
Tracey Petryshen, PhD
Joshua L. Roffman, MD, MMSc
Bruce R. Rosen, MD, PhD
Benjamin G. Shapero, PhD
Martha E. Shenton, PhD
Lee S. Cohen, MD
Daniel Fulford, PhD
Associated Programs
Psychosis Clinical & Research Program (PCRP)
First Episode & Early Psychosis Program (FEPP)
Recovery and Ongoing Care Clinic (ROCC)
Resilience & Prevention Program (RAPP)
Resilience Evaluation-Social Emotional Training (RE-SET) Program
Supported by
National Institute of Mental Health
The Sidney R. Baer, Jr Foundation
The Henry and Allison McCance Center for Brain Health
The MGH Research Scholar Program
The MGH Executive Committee on Research (ECOR)
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