Congratulations to Dr. Zahodne on her recent promotion to Associate Professor with tenure in the Department of Psychology!

Jingqi Zhu was awarded the Martha Muenzer Memorial Award, an award given to two “outstanding junior women in (or applying to) the Psychology Honors Program.” 

Jingqi will be working on her thesis next year studying how early life variables such as education quality would likely affect brain outcomes in aging, to help us understand aging from a lifespan perspective and create interventions for cognitive impairment.

Congratulations, Jingqi!

Emily Morris was awarded a Diversity Research Award from the Department of Psychology for her paper titled “Effects of stress exposure versus appraisal on episodic memory trajectories: Evidence for risk and resilience among black older adults.”

According to the Department of Psychology, this award “recognizes the first authors of outstanding publications advancing knowledge about the diversity of human experience.”

Congratulations, Emily!

Graduate student, Afsara Zaheed, successfully defended her dissertation on May 9th, 2022 titled “Sleep as a Modifiable Determinant of Gender, Racial, and Intersectional Disparities in Cognitive Aging.”

Congratulations, Afsara!

Afsara Zaheed, a fifth-year graduate student in the Zahodne Lab, will be moving to Los Angeles to complete her internship at UCLA.

Congratulations Afsara- we will miss you!

Zahodne lab attends the 74th Gerontological Society of America (GSA) Annual Scientific Meeting Online hosted between November 10th and 13th, 2021.

Dr. Zahodne received the 2021 Margaret M. and Paul B. Baltes Award, a society-wide award that acknowledges outstanding early career contributions in behavioral and social gerontology.

On behalf of the Michigan Center for Contextual Factors in Alzheimer’s Disease (MCCFAD), Dr. Zahodne co-chaired a symposium showcasing work from four MCCFAD-funded scholars Dr. Erica Diminich, Dr. Elizabeth Munoz, Dr. Tiffany Kindratt, and Dr. Sandra Arevalo. The symposium was entitled, Stress, Cognition, and Minority Health, and it included primary and secondary data projects centered on Latinx, Arab American, and African American populations.

Graduate student Jordan Palms delivered an oral presentation, Links Between Early-Life Contextual Factors and Later-Life Cognition and the Role of Educational Attainment. Jordan’s master’s research used data from the Michigan Cognitive Aging Project to examine life course contributors to cognitive health among Black and White older adults living in Southeast Michigan. 

Postdoctoral lab alum Dr. Neika Sharifian delivered an oral presentation, Depressive Symptoms, Leisure Activity Engagement, and Global Cognition in Non-Hispanic White and Black Older Adults, as part of an international symposium on moderators and mediators of links between older adults’ daily activities and well-being. Her project, recently accepted for publication in the Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, uses data from the Michigan Cognitive Aging Project to highlight modifiable contributors to racial disparities in late-life cognitive health.

Research Investigator Dr. Ketlyne Sol delivered two oral presentations, “Longitudinal Associations Between Loneliness and Self-Rated Health” and “Contextual Correlates of Cognitive Aging in Black Older Adults: Examining the Neighborhood,” each as part of two different symposia on health disparities in aging. The corresponding manuscript for the latter will be published in the upcoming, 2021 volume of the Annual Review of Geriatrics and Gerontology.

Dr. Ketlyne Sol was awarded a K01 mentored research award from the National Institutes of Aging for her MCAP project titled, “Risk and resilience mechanisms underlying race disparities in ADRD: An examination of neighborhood resources, social networks, brain integrity, and cognition.”

The purpose of the NIH Mentored Research Scientist Development Award (K01) is to provide support and “protected time” (three to five years) for an intensive, supervised career development experience in the biomedical, behavioral, or clinical sciences leading to research independence.

Congratulations, Ketlyne!

At the American Psychological Association (APA) 2021 Annual Convention hosted virtually between August 12 – 14, 2021, Dr. Zahodne accepted two early career awards:

The first is an APA-wide award for Distinguished Scientific Early Career Contributions to Psychology. Dr. Zahodne received this award “for her seminal contributions to the understanding of individual differences in cognitive aging and Alzheimer’s disease, particularly in relation to racial and ethnic inequalities. Laura B. Zahodne’s work has provided foundational knowledge concerning the environmental factors that underlie persistent racial disparities in late-life cognition. Specifically, she showed that social stress (e.g., discrimination) independently contributes to cognitive inequalities. Moreover, she identified variables that protect against cognitive aging, including education and social support; thus, her work identifies potential targets for intervention. Through her rigorous and innovative research, she is addressing issues that are among the most critical facing society.”

The second is the Robert A. and Phyllis Levitt Early Career Award in Neuropsychology from APA Division 40 (Society for Clinical Neuropsychology). This award “is granted to a neuropsychologist within 10 years of receiving their PhD who has “made a distinguished contribution to neuropsychology in one or more areas: research and scholarship, teaching and service, and/or clinical work.”

Graduate Student, Zarina Kraal, successfully defended her dissertation on July 7th, 2020 titled “Psychosocial and Cardiovascular Contributors to Longitudinal Cognitive Aging in Type 2 Diabetes”. She has accepted the position of Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Columbia University Department of Neurology.

Congratulations, Zarina!

JOB SUMMARY

The laboratory of Dr. Laura Zahodne in the Department of Psychology seeks to hire a postdoctoral research fellowship in cognitive aging and racial/ethnic inequalities in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) to begin Fall 2021. The lab uses the methods of clinical neuropsychology, neuroimaging, and epidemiology to examine psychosocial influences on cognitive and brain aging in diverse older adults. Primary research questions include: How can psychosocial experiences buffer against the cognitive impact of brain pathology in older adults? What psychological and social mechanisms underlie racial/ethnic disparities in Alzheimer’s disease?

Apply Here