Stacie completed her BA in psychology from California State University, Long Beach, and received her PhD in clinical/community psychology from the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. She completed her pre-doctoral clinical psychology internship and neuropsychology residency at the St. Louis VA Health Care System.

Stacie has broad, interdisciplinary interests in self-regulatory systems and psychopathology emergence, course, and treatment, particularly in anxiety and depression. Her program of research investigates processes, mechanisms, and psychosocial contexts involved in the development and course of psychopathology across childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. As a lifespan neuropsychologist with affective neuroscience expertise, her work attempts to delineate how cognitive processes (e.g., executive function, attention, cognitive control), emotional factors (e.g., positive and negative affect), and how different dimensions of adversity (e.g., poverty, environmental or interpersonal trauma, family conflict, attachment, uncertainty) contribute to emotion dysregulation, psychopathology, and brain network organization. She uses converging evidence from behavior (e.g., neuropsychological testing, laboratory performance tasks), clinical interviews, self- and informant-report measures, noninvasive systems neuroscience (fMRI, rsfMRI), and computational modeling.

Stacie is a first-generation college student who came from an economically disadvantaged background. She is committed to supporting diverse trainees, with a variety of lived experiences (e.g., economic uncertainty, educational disparities) and identities. The Computational Neuropsychology and Affective Neuroscience Lab is committed to respecting, promoting, and embodying diversity and inclusive learning.

Rushale Krishan is a doctoral student in the cognition and neuroscience program on the cognitive neuroscience track at The University of Texas at Dallas. She earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Texas at Austin in 2022. Rushale’s research interests broadly involve using computational modeling and machine learning to analyze brain imaging data in clinical populations.

Ritesh Malaiya is a doctoral student in the psychology program with a concentration in cognition and neuroscience at The University of Texas at Dallas. He received his master’s degree in applied cognition and neuroscience at The University of Texas at Dallas in the Fall of 2018, and his bachelor’s degree in computer engineering at Bharati Vidyapeeth University, India in the Spring of 2007. Ritesh’s research interests are concerned with the development and evaluation of mathematical models of metacognition and decision-making. More specifically, Ritesh is interested in modeling the progression of reasoning processes within a trial using the drift-diffusion and quantum random walk models. Ritesh also works in the Cognitive Informatics and Statistics lab led by Dr. Richard Golden at UT Dallas.

Zoe is currently pursuing her master’s in applied cognition and neuroscience at UT Dallas. She received her bachelor’s in psychology from UT Dallas in 2020 and hopes to attend a PhD program in clinical psychology after completing her graduate degree. Her research interests include psychopathology, machine learning, executive functioning, and decision making. In her free time, Zoe enjoys reading, baking, and exploring new places.

Zahir Shaikh is an MS psychology student and is interested in psychopathology and gene-environment interaction. He completed his undergraduate education at The University of Texas at Austin in psychology. He hopes to pursue a PhD in psychology and conduct his own research studies one day. In his free time, he enjoys reading science-fiction books and going on runs. 

Olivia is a junior studying psychology. She hopes to pursue a PhD in clinical psychology after completing her undergraduate education. Her research interests center around various forms of maladaptive eating behaviors. In her free time, Olivia enjoys spending time with friends and reading.

Dhruv is a freshman majoring in computer science with a minor in finance. He is interested in multiple areas of research including explainable AI in neuroimaging and behavioral analysis. He enjoys spending his free time with loved ones and playing video games with friends.

Succhay is a computer engineering major on the premed track. With a strong passion for computer science and medicine, he is particularly interested in developing innovative solutions by working with computational modeling for psychopathology. Succhay also enjoys reading, playing any racket sport, and spending time with friends.

Alia Mahama-Rodriguez is currently pursuing her master’s in computational biology and bioinformatics. She earned her bachelor’s in biomedical engineering with a minor in neuroscience at UT Dallas. Her research interests include perturbational neurobiology examining the neural and computational mechanisms underlying human beliefs, emotions, social deficits across diseases, and how some individuals are more phenotypically disposed towards negative patterns (e.g., anxiety, rumination, impulsivity, compulsivity, addiction). In her free time, Alia enjoys teaching vinyasa yoga and playing the violin and theremin.