People
The Etkin Lab - Fall 2011
Amit Etkin is Assistant Professor in the Department of
Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Stanford University School of
Medicine and an Investigator in the VA Sierra-Pacific Mental Illness
Research Education and Clinical Center (MIRECC) at the Palo Alto VA.
Dr. Etkin received his BS in Biology from the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology in 1997, and his MD and PhD with distinction from
Columbia University. His PhD work was done in the laboratory of Nobel
laureate Dr. Eric Kandel, and focused on the molecular and cellular
basis of learning and memory in mice. Simultaneous with this work, Dr.
Etkin pursued functional MRI neuroimaging research.
As a student he published several papers on the neural circuitry
involved in emotional processing and regulation in healthy subjects,
with a particular focus on processes going on outside of awareness.
Upon moving to Stanford for his psychiatry residency, Dr. Etkin
extended these neuroimaging paradigms to patient populations,
investigated in greater depth the basic mechanisms of implicit
(non-conscious) emotion regulation, and has developed several methods for understanding and manipulating neural circuit dynamics in humans, including with concurrent neuroimaging and non-invasive brain stimulation with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), as well as approaches to computerized training of emotion regulatory brain systems. He joined the faculty at Stanford in 2009, while also a PGY4 psychiatry resident. Dr. Etkin has recently been awarded the prestigious BRAINS (Biobehavioral Research Award for Innovative New Scientists) R01 Award from the National Institute of Mental Health and a Dana Neuroscience Scholar Award from the Dana Foundation.
Email Contact: amitetkin@stanford.edu
Elizabeth Weiss is a Life Sciences Research Scientist in the Etkin Lab and coordinates Dr. Etkin’s recent BRAINS R01 Award from the National Institute of Mental Health. The goal of this research is to apply functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to elucidate the brain circuitry underlying improvement in response to prolonged exposure (PE) psychotherapy for PTSD and to leverage this knowledge to develop a novel, personalized, neurocircuitry-targeting treatment using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS).
Dr. Weiss completed her PsyD in Clinical Psychology with a focus on trauma and resilience through the PGSP-Stanford PsyD Consortium at Palo Alto University. At her internship at Napa State Hospital, she became fascinated by the interplay between trauma and psychotic spectrum sequelae. She furthered her clinical and research experience helping individuals who cope with severe mental illness and histories of trauma reclaim more active lives at her Postdoctoral Fellowship in Psychosocial Rehabilitation at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center (SFVAMC).
Prior to becoming a psychologist, Dr. Weiss ran Meredith Productions, an academic technology management company, and worked as a manager at Oracle Corporation.
Email Contact: melweiss@stanford.edu
Ashley Chen is a postdoctoral fellow in the Etkin lab, starting
April 2010. Ashley completed her Bachelor’s degree in Life
Sciences from National Tsing-Hua University in Taiwan, and earned her
Master’s and Doctoral degree in Neuroscience from University of
Michigan in Ann Arbor. Using both behavioral and neuroimaging
methods, her previous work focused on network interactions of the
brain’s large-scale neural systems during social cognition.
Ashley has strong interests in better understanding the mechanisms
under which various neural-circuits contribute to brain functions as a
whole. She is currently working with several other brilliants
minds to develop concurrent TMS/fMRI protocols, which ultimately have
implications to better help clinical populations.
Email Contact: ashley.chen@stanford.edu
Madeleine Goodkind received her PhD in clinical psychology from UC-Berkeley. During graduate school, she studied changes in emotional functioning associated in diverse neurological conditions. In particular, this research focused on empathy and emotion regulation among patients with frontotemporal dementia and frontal lobe injuries.
Madeleine completed her clinical internship at the VA-Northern California. As a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Etkin's lab, she is working on the BRAINS project, studying neural circuitry underlying exposure-based psychotherapy for PTSD. She is interested in the interplay between emotion regulation, treatment response, and neural networks. She is a fellow with the Mental Illness Research and Education and Clinical Center (MIRECC) at the Palo Alto VA.
Email Contact: mgoodkin@stanford.edu
Anett Gyurak has a PhD in psychology from UC Berkeley. As a
Hungarian native, she completed her undergraduate studies in psychology
at Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest. Anett's research interests are
focused on emotion regulation, its neurological, physiological and
behavioral concomitants.
She studies this question using a variety of methods such as autonomic
nervous system physiology, fMRI, neuropsyhological tests, and
self-report measures. With these converging techniques she tries to
answer several important questions about the origins and active
ingredients of emotion regulatory ability, and ultimately hopes to
design intervention techniques aimed to cultivate them. Anett was
awarded the Dean's Postdoctoral Fellowship for her first year of
postdoctoral research training in the Stanford University School of
Medicine.
Email Contact: agyurak@stanford.edu
Desmond has a PhD in Clinical Psychology with a Psychophysiology
minor from Penn State University. He has studied anxiety and
depression using a variety of methods including functional MRI,
transcranial magnetic stimulation, diffusion tensor imaging, genetics,
peripheral psychophysiology, behavior, memory, and many others.
In Dr. Etkin's lab, Desmond will be working on the combined TMS/fMRI
project and will be analyzing emotional processing data from a variety
of clinical populations. Desmond is a War Related Illness and
Injury Study Center (WRIISC) fellow. He also plans to complete
psychologist licensure requirements for California in the near future.
Email Contact: oathes@stanford.edu
Jill Waring received her PhD in psychology from Boston College, with a focus upon cognitive, affective, and behavioral neuroscience. Her graduate dissertation research applied behavioral and fMRI neuroimaging techniques to examine the effects of emotion on attention and memory interactions in healthy aging adults and those with Mild Cognitive Impairment.
Jill’s research interests are in identifying neural markers that may influence or precede age-related cognitive decline and early stages of Alzheimer's disease.
Her current research underway in the Etkin Lab uses fMRI to investigate how clinical depression and anxiety disorders impact emotional reactivity and brain structure in older adults.
Email Contact: waringj@stanford.edu
Deborah Nazarian, PhD
Deborah Nazarian is a licensed clinical psychologist and postdoctoral fellow with the Mental Illness Research and Education Clinical Center (MIRECC) at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System and Stanford University School of Medicine. She received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Syracuse University and completed her predoctoral internship at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System, with an emphasis in behavioral medicine. Deborah’s research interests focus on examining the psychological and physical health consequences of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). She is also interested in the development and evaluation of clinical interventions that reduce the negative sequelae of PTSD.
Naho Ichikawa, MA, Ph.D. candidate
Naho Ichikawa is interested in the human cognition-emotion interaction, including behavioral (conflict/error) monitoring, emotion regulation, motivation, learning, and decision-making. As she is interested in those brain mechanisms and the utilization of biological markers, she has used neurophysiological indices (fMRI, EEG/ERP, eyeblink/EOG, eye-movements, pupil dilation, ECG/HR/HRV, SCR/SCL, facial EMG, etc.) in her previous work. She has also applied computational modeling methods to her research. Naho has studied and worked at Nagoya University, University of Pittsburgh, and the National Institute for Physiological Sciences (NIPS). She is in the process of submitting her dissertation to the Department of Psychology at Nagoya University, Japan.
As a new addition to the Etkin Lab (as of December 2010), she is focusing her research on exploring how implicit-explicit emotion regulation may improve cognitive task performance. She is specifically looking at the growing geriatric population, with and without affective disorders (e.g. GAD, MDD, and PTSD).
Email Contact: ichikawa@stanford.edu
My current work involves the development of a multivariate discriminant toolbox, with a particular focus on neuroimaging. My research interests are in segmentation, registration, multivariate discriminant analysis, visualization/computer graphics and GPU computing. My doctorate work was performed at FMRIB, University of Oxford where I received my D.Phil. My major contribution during my time at Oxford was the development of a model-based subcortical segmentation tool (FIRST) which is now included in FSL.
Email Contact: brianp3@stanford.edu
Irene Akingbade is a research assistant with the Etkin lab. She is a 2010 graduate of Yale University with a BA in Psychology (Neuroscience Concentration). At Yale, Irene was a student research assistant in the Shafe Lab and studied fear memory consolidation in the amygdala. After graduating, she worked as the research coordinator for the Brown Lab at Northwestern University, studying the neuroscience of lower-limb rehabilitation in people who have had a stroke.
Irene is currently involved in several projects in the Etkin lab that use TMS stimulation, EEG, and fMRI scanning to map out the neural circuits involved in emotional regulation and whether we can use this information to make better therapies/interventions. Irene hopes to get her PhD studying related questions.
Laurel Brown is a research assistant with the Etkin lab. She graduated from University of California, Berkeley with a BA in Psychology and Mathematics. At UC Berkeley, Laurel was a research assistant with the Shimamura Lab studying memory, and with the Berkeley Psychophysiology Lab studying the emotional aspect of neurodegenerative diseases. Laurel is currently working on several projects in the Etkin lab, including the neural basis of emotion regulation, and the functional difference of emotional activity in depression, generalized anxiety disorder, and PTSD.
Kathy serves as lab manager and research assistant in the Etkin lab. She graduated from Yale with a B.S. in Biology in May of 2009. As an undergraduate, she worked in neurobiology labs studying the effects of stress on working memory and the impairment of consciousness in epilepsy. After graduation, Kathy worked for a year in a Stanford neurophysiology laboratory studying epilepsy in rodent models and gradually realized that her passions were a better fit for clinical research and affective neuroscience. She decided to shift gears and is now hoping to pursue a career in clinical psychology.
Her research interests include the intersection of sleep and circadian biology with emotion regulation, psychotherapy process and outcome, and the neural correlates of therapeutic change.
Laurel has dabbled in careers from copyediting to publicity, but feels she has finally found a permanent home field in psychology. She hasn't yet decided on specific areas of research interest, but she very much enjoys her position at the lab, which involves coordinating and conducting initial phone interviews. She also assists with running fMRI scans. She is applying to a PhD program in clinical psychology and hopes to start in the fall of 2012.
Sahar Esfahani, MA
Sahar Esfahani is a Clinical Research Assistant in the Etkin Lab. She is currently working towards her Ph.D. at the Pacific Graduate School of Psychology at Palo Alto University. Prior to moving to California, Sahar earned her M.A. in Clinical Psychology with a specialization in Counseling from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. She practiced as an Employee Assistance Counselor in Chicago, IL where she worked with employees following work-related accidents, as well as working with those with substance use disorders. Her primary interests relate to the assessment and treatment of PTSD. In addition to her work in the Etkin Lab, Sahar is also a Clinical Research Assistant at The Early Intervention Clinic, which provides evidence-based early intervention treatment to traumatized individuals. She hopes to continue her clinical work with trauma victims in a variety a settings while further establishing her research interests.
Aikisha Harley
Megan is a research assistant with the Etkin lab and is a doctoral student in clinical psychology at the PGSP-Stanford PsyD Consortium. She earned a B.A. in Anthropology at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY. Her past research experience includes studying procedures for handling incidental findings on fMRI scans, with Dr. Judith Illes, PhD, at the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics.
She looks forward to developing her clinical and research skills in the lab, and better understanding the impact of trauma on emotion regulation and mental health.
Kaycee Rashid
Meena Saleh, MS, PhD Candidate
Meena Saleh is a PhD candidate of Clinical Psychology at Pacific Graduate School of Psychology at Palo Alto University. Combined emphases are in health and rehabilitation neuropsychology. Ms. Saleh has had out-patient and in-patient practicum trainings at both Palo Alto and Martinez VA Medical Centers, as well as multiple supplemental practica at Stanford and at UCSF. Research interests of cognitive neuroscience and behavioral psychiatry stemmed from her BA studies in Psychology and neurobiology at UC Irvine's Department of Cognitive Science. Long-term plans include primarily clinical work, with an active involvement in research.
Miriam is a research assistant with the Etkin lab and is a doctoral student in clinical psychology at the PGSP-Stanford PsyD Consortium. She earned a B.A. in Neuroscience and Behavior at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY. Her past research experience was in addressing barriers to participation in cancer clinical trails and medical decision making at Kaiser Permanente’s Division of Research in Oakland.
She has a strong interest in exploring the neural and behavioral
aspects of emotional processing and individual decision making.
Taryn is a research assistant with the Etkin lab and primarily works on the BRAINS R01 NIMH project. Taryn is a PhD student in Clinical Psychology at the Pacific Graduate School of Psychology at Palo Alto University. She graduated from the University of California, Irvine in Psychology and Social Behavior where she worked in a health psychology lab assessing heart rate variability. In 2007, Taryn joined Stanford as a project coordinator for a study involving cognitive impairment and sleep apnea in older adults. In 2009, Taryn earned her Registered Polysomnographic Technologist (RPSGT) credential to advance her knowledge in sleep disorders.
Taryn continues to gain research and clinical experience at multiple sites in the Bay Area that focus on traumatic stress, emotion regulation and addiction.
Susan Lauer, BS Psychology Candidate
Susan is an undergraduate research assistant at Etkin Lab and is currently completing her senior year at Palo Alto University, Psychology and Social Action Program. Susan plans to begin her doctorate education at the Pacific Graduate School of Psychology at Palo Alto University in the Fall of 2012.
Susan’s interests lie specifically in Clinical Psychology in addition to drug-free interventions and new clinical treatments related to depression, anxiety and trauma, in addition to the neural mechanisms that underpin these disorders.
Prior to her interest in Psychology, Susan worked in Business Development and Investor Relations in the CATV and Telecommunications industry.
Christine Karamagi
Peter Moon
Laura Rose
Alumni
Travis Bradley, BS, MPP
Travis Bradley was a research assistant in the Etkin
lab. He has a BS in Psychology and a Master of Public Policy
degree. Before
joining the lab, Travis was a research assistant in the Berkeley
Psychophysiology Lab at UC Berkeley studying empathy, and a research
assistant in the Early Life Stress Research Program at Stanford
University studying childhood trauma. He worked on several
projects in the Etkin Lab, including an investigation of neural network activity in psychiatric disorders, combined TMS/fMRI, and
analysis of emotion processing data.
His research interests primarily lie in systems and affective neuroscience, and broadly include the neurobiological substrates of emotion regulation, plasticity,
and the relationship between emotions and other cognitive functions.
Nadeem Hasan, BA
Nadeem was a research assistant with the Etkin lab, and currently a doctoral student in clinical psychology at the PGSP-Stanford PsyD Consortium. Prior to joining the lab, Nadeem worked at The Study of Adult Development at Brigham & Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Clinically, Nadeem has served as a member of an in-patient community reintegration team at McLean Hospital and is currently working with veterans at the Menlo Park VA.
His clinical and research interests converge in the study and
implementation of mindfulness and meditative practices in the service
of enhancing emotion regulation and preventing relapse.
Ann Leibovitz
Annie was a research assistant with the Etkin lab, and currently a doctoral student in clinical psychology at the PGSP-Stanford PsyD Consortium. She earned a B.A. in Psychological & Brain Sciences at Dartmouth College. Prior to pursuing her PsyD, Annie worked in the business field as a Marketing Planner for Williams-Sonoma, Inc.
She has a strong research interest in anxiety disorders, health psychology, and the neurobiological implications of psychotherapy interventions.
Adam Miner, BA
Adam was a research assistant with the Etkin lab, and currently a doctoral student in clinical psychology at the PGSP-Stanford PsyD Consortium. Prior to joining the lab, Adam worked as a Process Specialist at the VA Great Lakes Health Care System where he developed operational workflows and tools to enhance clinical decision making and increase managerial transparency. Previously, he was a Project Manager with Epic where he worked with large healthcare organizations in their transition from paper based charts to electronic medical records. As an undergraduate, Adam worked with Dr. Beth Haines at Lawrence University on the development and testing of the CASI (Children's Attributional Style Interview).
He has a strong interest in neuroscience, neuropsychology and the treatment of veterans.
Jennie Lambert, BA
