Lab Alumni

Arianna Gard | arigard@umd.edu 

Dr. Gard is an Assistant Professor of Developmental Psychology, Faculty Affiliate in the Program in Neuroscience and Cognitive Neuroscience (NACS), and Director of the Growth And Resilience across Development (GARD) Lab at the University of Maryland, College Park. She completed postdoctoral and graduate training at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Arianna is an interdisciplinary scientist with training in affective neuroscience, developmental psychology, clinical science, and survey methodology. Her research examines the neurobiological mechanisms linking socioeconomic adversity and protective factors to youth socioemotional development, highlighting the complex interplay between risk and resilience, genetic predispositions, and brain development. A prominent feature of her work is to increase sociodemographic diversity in neurobiological research by including historically under-represented groups in research design and implementation. 

Melissa Peckins | mpeckins@umich.edu

Dr. Peckins was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in developmental psychology. She received her doctorate in biobehavioral health from The Pennsylvania State University with a focus on the biopsychosocial consequences of early life stress across development and developmental methodology. Her research utilizes a multi-level, interdisciplinary approach to study how contextual factors such as child maltreatment and violence exposure impact the endocrine response to stress, health, and behavior from childhood to early adulthood. She is currently on a training grant to study the role of neural processes in the association between context, functioning of the stress response system, and behavior.

Rebecca Waller | rewaller@umd.edu 

Dr. Waller was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow who joined Michigan in 2013 after receiving her doctorate from the University of Oxford. She has an MA in Experimental Psychology and MSc in Evidence-Based Social Intervention, also from the University of Oxford. Her research is focused on examining behavioral and personality precursors of psychopathy and antisocial behavior from a developmental psychopathology perspective. Specifically, she studies how children’s early environmental risk (including parental harshness and low warmth) is related to the development of callous unemotional (CU) traits and the emergence of conduct problems in later childhood and adolescence. Within this, she focuses on issues related to the conceptualization and measurement of CU traits in children, as well as related constructs such as empathy and early conscience deficits. Her recent work incorporates neurogenetics to better understand the heritable and neural risk markers for CU traits and antisocial behavior, with the ultimate goal of informing preventative interventions. Dr. Waller is currently on a T32 Fellowship in the Addiction Center of Department of Psychiatry at the University of Michigan, where she is integrating models of early externalizing psychopathology with risk for problematic substance and alcohol use across development. From July 1st 2018, Dr. Waller will be an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania.

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Rachel Tomlinson | raclaire@umich.edu

Rachel received her doctorate in Clinical Science in September 2022. Rachel received a BS in psychology from Duke University in 2014, with an additional major in biology. After graduating, she was lab manager for Elizabeth Brannon’s cognitive development lab at Duke (now Penn) and studied how infants and children learn about numbers and math. With her research program, Rachel is investigating the pathways through which early life adversity (e.g. poverty) affects the development of executive functioning. Clinically, she is interested in evidence-based treatments for childhood mental health problems (i.e. CBT for anxiety) and adapting these treatments for under-resourced populations. She is now a predoctoral Clinical Psychology Fellow in the Child Trauma Research Program at the UCSF Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.

Hailey Dotterer

Hailey received a BA with highest distinction in Psychology, a Master’s of Science, and doctorate in Clinical Psychology from the University of Michigan. She is now a Clinical Neuropsychology Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Psychiatry in the School of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University.

Isaiah Sypher

Isaiah received his doctorate in Clinical Psychology from the University of Michigan and a BA in Psychology from Wesleyan University. His research explores links between race-based stress and substance use disorders, with a particular emphasis on community-based approaches. He completed his predoctoral internship providing services at the Substance Abuse Treatment Unit and Adult Community Mental Health programs within the Connecticut Mental Health Center (CMHC) at the Yale School of Medicine. He is completing his fellowship in Substance Abuse Services at the Connecticut Mental Health Center in the Yale Doctoral Internship in Clinical and Community Psychology. In April 2022 he was awarded an APA Minority Fellowship from the American Psychological Association.

Laura Murray

Laura was a graduate student in the Clinical Psychology Ph.D. program. Laura received her B.A. in psychology with a minor in neurobiology from Harvard University in 2011, and was also a member of the Harvard Women’s Swimming and Diving team. Laura’s research focuses on understanding the role of reward processing in the development and persistence of antisocial behavior and psychopathy. Her dissertation investigates the potential relationships between components of antisocial behavior (e.g., callous-unemotional traits, delinquency, and disinhibition) and dysfunctional neural response to reward and punishment in youth and adults at risk for antisocial behavior. This year, Laura will be completing her clinical psychology internship at the Alpert Medical School at Brown University.