Christine I. Hooker | email | CV

Christine Hooker received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Northwestern University in 2002. She completed her clinical training at the VA Northern California and then worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow and later a Research Professor in the Neuroscience Institute at the University of California at Berkeley. She is now an Associate Professor in the Psychology Department at Harvard University. Her research uses functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to investigate neural mechanisms that facilitate social functioning in healthy adults and patients with schizophrenia disorder. Her work has been supported by the National Institute of Health, the MIND Institute, and the National Association for Research in Schizophrenia and Depression.

Hong Yin | email

Hong is interested in using neuroimaging to enhance our understanding of mechanisms for cognitive functions and how variations of the mechanism in individuals may lead to impairment or disorder such as schizophrenia.  Hong has a PhD in biophysics with industrial experience in software development and data management.  Hong performs analyses of BOLD activity, functional connectivity and white matter integrity using various computational tools with customization to ensure efficient data processing flow and consistency in data quality.    Hong is also involved in our pilot project that examines effects of cognitive remediation therapy on different subject groups.

Graduate Students

Sarah Hope Lincoln | email | CV

Sarah Hope is originally from the south (hence the double first name), and is currently completing her clinical internship at Bellevue/NYU Hospital, child and adolescent track. Sarah Hope received a B.A. from Wellesley College, and has done research with the U.S. Naval Academy and the Baltimore VA. From there she started graduate school with a broad interested in developmental psychopathology from a neurobiological perspective.  More specifically she is interested in how impairment in the neurobiology of affective and social processes may lead to deficits in social cognition and social functioning as they occur in disorders of childhood and adolescence. Currently her research focuses on children and adolescents at risk for schizophrenia spectrum disorders. She will be starting a post-doctoral research position at Boston Children's Hospital/Harvard Medical School to continue research focused on children with severe mental illness.

David Dodell-Feder | email | CV | homepage

David is interested in social cognition, specifically theory of mind, and its relationship to real-world social behavior in individuals with schizophrenia and individuals at-risk for schizophrenia. He is also interested in social cognitive interventions to improve upon problems in aspects of social cognition in these populations. David uses functional and structural magnetic resonance imaging, as well as behavioral methods, to investigate these issues.

Steven Felix | email 

Steven is broadly interested in emotional abilities and their importance in social interactions and relationships. Currently he is investigating how empathy affects the ways people think and feel. Steven has a B.A. in Psychology from Yale University.

Cora Mukerji | email 

Cora is broadly interested in the neural bases of social cognition deficits and their relation to interpersonal functioning in developmental psychopathology. She is particularly interested in investigating shared neural correlates of impaired social function in children at high risk for psychosis and children with ASD. Cora has a B.A. in Psychology from Yale University.

Erik Nook | website

Erik hails from the town of Schaller, Iowa, but he also spent time in South Africa and Australia while growing up.  He received his B.A. in psychology from Columbia University, where he worked with Prof. Kevin Ochsner and Dr. Ajay Satpute on the effects of emotion naming on emotion regulation.  After graduating, Erik served as the lab manager for Prof. Jamil Zaki, where he studied the role of emotion concepts in emotion perception and the positive application of social norms.  In the SNAP Lab, Erik hopes to extend these lines of work into the clinical domain.  For example, how does our ability (or inability) to verbalize emotion affect our mental health?  How can we best use social norms to motivate healthy behaviors?

Research Assistants

Erin Guty

Erin is from near Hershey, Pennsylvania and received her B.A. from Princeton University. She majored in Psychology with a certificate in Neuroscience. Erin did her Senior Thesis on practice effects in neuropsychological testing for concussions. While Erin has focused on mild traumatic brain injury, she is really fascinated by the intersection of social psychology, neuroscience, and mental illness.  

Natalie Kleeman

Natalie graduated from Brown University in 2013 with a Sc.B. in Cognitive Neuroscience. While at Brown, she worked in the Causality and Mind Lab studying how children understand causality and other's mental states. Outside of the lab, Natalie loves cooking, musical theatre, photography, and traveling.

Cambria Litsey

Cambria grew up in Minnetonka, Minnesota before her family relocated to the San Francisco Bay area. She received her B.A. in psychology from Colgate University. During undergrad she focused on developmental cognition. She hopes to continue to study the relationship between cognition and social and emotional functioning and its development. In addition to her love of psychology, Cambria enjoys traveling, writing, photography, and cooking. 

Mia Schulam

Mia received her B.A. from New York University with a major in Psychology and minors in both Nutrition and Anthropology. While at NYU, Mia interned at the Family Translational Research Group where she worked mainly on a project that enrolled men and women from the United States Martine Corps. She assisted in creating a program that helps these men and women with the difficulties of assimilating back into civilian life after deployment. Mia also interned at Yale University where she began a research study investigating the relationship of a familial history of alcoholism and the age of onset in an individual with an eating disorder. In addition to research, she shadowed doctors during clinical sessions and inpatient visits. Mia hopes to continue on to graduate school and earn her Ph.D.  in clinical psychology!   

Audrey Torricelli

Audrey is from San Diego, California and received her B.A. in Psychology and Art History from New York University, with a minor in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Studies. In addition to gaining experience at the NYU Child Study Center, Audrey worked at NYU’s Family Translational Research Group and later the Social Cognitive Development Lab at Yale. She is interested in investigating early interventions for atypical social cognition in developmental populations. Outside of lab, Audrey enjoys reading postmodern fiction, visiting art museums, and rowing on the Charles in the dark.

Theresa Cheng

Theresa is a master's student in Mind, Brain, and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She is interested in the development of social cognition and emotions, particularly during adolescence. Theresa holds a B.A. in Philosophy and a B.S. in Biology from California State University, Los Angeles. After college, she taught middle school and high school science.

Matthew Abrams

Matt is a Harvard senior living in Adams house, originally from San Diego. He studies psychology (cognitive neuroscience track) with a secondary in global health and health policy.  At Harvard, he has served on the boards of the Undergraduate Council, Drug and Alcohol Peer Advisors (DAPA), and Recreational Experiences with Arts Creativity at Harvard (REACH). In his spare time, he loves to listen to music, go running along the Charles, tryout new restaurants, play tennis, and visit the beach. 

Amanda Heffernan

Amanda is an undergrad RA and Psychology concentrator. She is interested in the intersection of psychopathology and social justice, particularly severe mental illness in homeless individuals and in other marginalized populations. Before coming to the SNAP Lab, Amanda spent a year training parrots in the Pepperberg Lab for Avian Cognition. When not in lab, Amanda enjoys martial arts, baking, and doing advocacy work at a local shelter. 

Ann-Marie Barrett

Ann-Marie is a junior undergrad RA in Quincy House. She is interested in the intersection between neuroscience, psychopathology and the law. Outside of lab, she competes with the Women's Rugby Team and teaches English to Chinese immigrants. In her spare time, she enjoys filming, photographing, and playing tennis.  

Laura M. Tully |  email

Tully has a broad interest in the neural mechanisms of social cognition. More specifically she is interested in the cognitive control of emotion, its implications in our social interactions, and the development of targeted cognitive training to improve cognitive control in severely impaired clinical populations. Laura graduated from Edinburgh University with MA (honors) in Psychology and completed her clinical internship at the Center for Assessment and Prevention of Prodromal States, UCLA Semel Institute of Neuroscience. She is currently is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, UC Davis Imaging Research Center, working with Cameron Carter and Tara Niendam.

Laura Germine | email | webpage

Laura is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the Psychiatric & Neurodevelopmental Genetics Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Juston Osborne

Allie Pace

Allie was a senior thesis student and research assistant in the SNAP lab.  She graduated in May, 2014.

Matthew Yung

Emily Carol

Meghan Brady

Abigail Hook

Sarah Rosenkrantz

Cheryl Best

Jessica Li

Danielle Cohn

Canines

Blu

Blu's interests include chewing, walking in the park, Berry Line, and ripping the fluff out of stuff.

Mittens

Mittens is broadly interested in power napping and pouncing on keyboards.