Past Laboratory Activities

2022-2023

2021-2022

Here are submissions by lab members.  Because of COVID-19, the Association for Psychological Science convention was cancelled and virtual poster sessions were held in 2020 and 2021:

APS 2021



MPA 2021:

We don't only go to APS and MPA.  Here are other conferences from 2020-2021:

Gandelman, E. M.*, Farinelli, S., Kileen, T., Santa Ana, E. J., Miller, S. A., & Back, S. E. (2020). Linguistic analysis of COPE therapy for veterans with PTSD and substance use disorder.  Poster presented at the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies 36th Annual Meeting.  Online convention. 

APS 2020:

Midwestern Psychological Association - 2019:

Our lab presented the following posters at MPA in Chicago in April:

Association for Psychological Science - 2018:


Our lab presented the following research at The 30th Annual Convention of the Association for Psychological Science in San Francisco:

Photos from APS 2018:


 




 


 


Lab Dinner at Bissap Baobab for Senegalese Food


During 2017, our lab is submitting several presentations to the 89th Annual Meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association.  

Our photos from MPA 2017:




  


Lab Dinner at Rickshaw Republic for Indonesian Food


On May 15, 2017, we presented at Rosalind Franklin's All School Research Consortium and here are some photos

:Association for Psychological Science, 2016


We submitted a symposium about taxometrics that was accepted.  We also had another poster submission. 

We also submitted a poster to APS 2016


Reed, B. W.*, Klappa, S. P.*, & Miller, S. A. (2016). Making McDonald's ω accessible:  An SPSS GUI that interfaces with R "Psych."  Poster presented at the 28th AnnualConvention of the Association for Psychological Science. Chicago, Illinois.



 

 


 

 

We also took part in RFUMS's ASRC in 2016.


Photos of Our Lab's Posters at Rosalind Franklin's 11th Annual All School Research Consortium  (March 16, 2016)

Association for Psychological Science - 2015

Lab Dinner at Banana Leaf (Sri Lankan) on Friday Night  


Midwestern Psychological Association - 2015

 Photo of Our Lab's Posters at the Midwestern Psychological Association in Chicago (May 2,


Association for Psychological Science - 2014

 




And here are some pictures of the lab and surrounding area.


 Looking into the lab

 A view out the lab window

 Another view 

 Alumni



Former Ph.D. Students

Erin Gandelman, Ph.D. completed the psychopathology track in the Clinical Psychology Ph.D. program at RFUMS. Dr. Gandelman concentrated in psychology and poetry at Sarah Lawrence College graduated in May of 2018. She has worked as an undergraduate researcher at the Yale University West Haven VA Hospital for the past two years and has been awarded a research fellowship for the 2018 Summer Research Training Program at the Medical University of South Carolina. Erin has been published in the Journal of Dual Diagnosis, The American Journal on Addictions, and Alcohol and Alcoholism. She is very interested in the intersections of life narratives, memory, and personality as well as the applications of novel quantitative methodology to psychological questions. Erin ultimately plans to conduct research to better understand and evaluate treatment practices for mood and trauma related disorders.  A copy of her CV is here.   She completed her dissertation and her clinical internship at Edward Hines, Jr. VA Medical Center.  She is a PTSD Staff Psychologist at Richmond Veteran Affairs Medical Center


Sophie Leib, Ph.D. completed the neuropsychology track of the Clinical Psychology Ph.D program.  Dr. Leib started at RFUMS in August of 2017. She earned a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Spanish from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in May of 2017. Sophie is interested in the effects of emotion and culture on neuropsychological and functioning.  During the summer of 2021, she successfully defended her dissertation.  She completed her clinical internship at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.  A copy of her CV is here.


Gregory Obert, Ph.D. completed the Clinical Psychology Ph.D. program.  Dr. Obert started at RFUMS in August of 2017.  He has devoted his life to assisting others through therapy, and has enhanced the lives of many clients during his time as a counselor.  His combination of cognitive behavioral and client-centered therapeutic approaches has provided his clients with a unique setting to explore ways to improve themselves.  Gregory has worked in many different settings, including inpatient units, domestic violence shelters, community mental health centers, and private practices.  He is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in Illinois and received his M.Ed. in Community Counseling from DePaul University in Chicago.  During the  summer of 2021, Greg successfully proposed his dissertation.  He  successfully defended his dissertation in the summer of 2022 and completed his clinical internship at G.V. Montgomery VA Medical Center in Jackson, Mississippi. A copy of his CV is here. 


His site is:  www.GregoryTObert.com 

Karolina (Karol) Grotkowski, Ph.D. completed the Clinical Psychology Ph.D. program at RFUMS in 2022. Dr. Grotkowski earned her B.S. in Neuroscience from the University ofIllinois at Chicago. Karol’s research interests include the development of personality and personality disorders, influence of social contexts on personality, and statistical methods.   She has been published in The Family Journal on research she has done on the Marriage Protection Theory as it relates to couples in long distance and proximal relationships. She also presented her findings during the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies Conference in 2016.  Karol joined the lab in the fall of 2016.  A copy of her CV is here.  Karol has created a web page dedicated to her dissertation, which is A Polish Translation and Adaptation of the Negative Mood Regulation Expectancies Scale.  She completed her clinical internship at Duke University.  


Brandon Reed, Ph.D. completed the Clinical Psychology Ph.D in 2021.  Dr. Reed completied a master's degree in clinical psychology at California State University, Fullerton, where he works with Dr. Nancy Segal on twins and grief.  He did his undergraduate degree at Fullerton, where he worked with Steve in an earlier incarnation of the Personality and Emotion Research Laboratory; they presented this poster and he worked on this poster which were presented at APS in 2008.  Brandon started working in the laboratory (again) in August of 2015.  A copy of his CV is here.




Maggie Abraham, Ph.D. completed the Clinical Psychology Ph.D in 20201. Dr. Abraham was a student on the neuropsychology track at RFUMS who joined the lab in Winter of 2018. She is currently on internship and has successfully defended her dissertation   She completed a B.S. in Psychology and a Bachelor of Health Sciences at the University of Missouri in 2015. Research interests include identification of cognitive and neural markers of risk for developing Alzheimer's disease, qualitative analysis of verbal fluency patterns, and examining components of verbal fluency in various clinical populations. She hopes to pursue a career as a neuropsychologist in an academic medical center or rehabilitation hospital working with a diverse clinical population.  A copy of her CV is here.



Emily Weber, Ph.D. completed the Clinical Psychology Ph D. program in 2019.  Dr. Weber earned her B.A. in Psychology from Lake Forest College in Lake Forest, IL. Her research interests include stress and coping strategies, personality disorders, interpersonal violence, and resilience.  She is currently working on completing her thesis on the predictive utility of life stress and coping strategies in a domestic violence offender population.  Clinically, she has worked with an offender population and is currently working with PTSD veterans who suffer from moral injury.  In the future, she hopes to explore her interests working with a forensic population.  She presented her findings from a methods study at the International Family Violence and Child Victimization Conference in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.  She collaborated with another RFUMS student to conduct a study that explored the error rates involved in making typology classification in a probation sample of male perpetrators.  Emily started working in the lab in winter of 2014.  A copy of her CV is here.  She is currently a post-doc at Netcare Forensic Center in Columbus, Ohio.


Drew Fowler, Ph.D. completed the Clinical Psychology Ph.D. program in 2017. Dr. Fowler received his Bachelor's degree in Psychology, with a minor in Quantitative Psychology from the University of Kansas. Drew's areas of interests include: resiliency, grit, positive psychology, interpersonal relationships, aggression, and issues related to gay and lesbian populations. Drew has worked with a variety of clinical populations and settings, including: domestic violence perpetrators, veterans with severe mental illnesses and PTSD, at-risk youth, children and adolescents, families, low SES community populations, and individuals suffering from chronic and/or severe medical illnesses. At the 2015 APS conference in New York, Drew and Emily presented a poster examining the relationship between hope and optimism in an MTurk sample. In 2015, Drew received the CRI Healthy World Scholarship for his clinical work with under-served community populations. Drew is set to propose his dissertation in August. He started working in the lab in winter of 2014.  During the 2016-2017 school year, Drew completed his internship at the VA Portland Health Care System.  A copy of his CV is here.  He is currently a psychologist at Kansas City VA




 


Drew on his (successful) dissertation defense day (Monday, December 12, 2016)


 

Photo Coming Soon 



Dan Goldstein, Ph.D. completed the Clinical Psychology Ph.D. program in 2016.  Dr. Goldstein is currently a clinical psychologist at Edward Hines , Jr. VA Hospital.   He completed a M.S. in clinical psychology at RFUMS, an M.A. in forensic psychology at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, and a B.S. in Political Science at the University of Illinois.   More information about Dr. Goldstein may be found here.




PAST RESEARCH ASSISTANTS

Victoria Sardella, B.S. completed the Clinical Counseling M.S. program. She earned her B.S. in Psychology in May 2020 from Loyola University Chicago. Before working in the Personality and Emotion Research Lab, she worked as a research assistant in Dr. Collen Conley’s  IMPACT Lab (Improving Mental-health and Promoting Adjustment through Critical Transitions) and has worked with Dr. Bradley Riemann and Dr. Nader Amir in the Cognitive Bias Modification Lab through Rogers Behavioral Health. Her research interests include exploring the effects of personality on treatment outcomes in OCD, anxiety, mood, trauma and eating disorders. Victoria plans to pursue a PhD program in the future and wishes to apply her research in clinical settings. Her CV may be found here.  


Elliot Borge volunteered in the laboratory between Fall 2020 and Fall 2021.

Marianne Chirica completed the Clinical Counseling M.S. program in 2021. She graduated from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in May 2019 with a B.S in Liberal Arts and Science, majoring in Psychology and Sociology. Her research interests include mood and personality disorders. She plans to pursue a PhD program in the future and hopes to apply her research in clinical settings. Her CV may be found here. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in clinical science at Indiana University.

Sarah Bragg volunteered in the lab between June of 2014 and August of 2015.  She graduated with her B.S. in Psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in May of 2014. Her areas of interest include emotion and personality factors contributing to the development and maintenance of anxiety disorders, as well as the creation of effective therapies for culturally diverse clients.  Her CV may be found here.  Sarah is currently a Ph.D. student in the clinical psychology program at Northern Illinois University


Scott Klappa completed an M.S. in Clinical Counseling. He earned his B.A. in Psychology from Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota, Winonata. His areas of interest include self-regulative mechanisms, personality traits, and motivation factors operating between the individual and groups. Scott's current research looks at personality and the influence of emotion on decision-making. Clinically, he is currently at a practicum placement working with clients with severe, persistent mental illness. Scott has been published in The International Journal of Health, Wellness and Society on research he has done on professional identity, resilience, and hardiness of foreign-trained physical therapists.  Scott worked in the lab from fall of 2013 to Summer of 2016.  A copy of his CV is here.


Aysha Azimuddin was a Clinical Counseling Masters student who worked in the lab between winter of 2014 and August of 2015.  She earned her B.S. in Psycholgy from Loyola University Chicago, where she worked in Dr. Victor Ottati's research lab on the cognition behind political views and stereotypes. Her research interests include the cultural influences on personality, emotion, and therapy approaches.

Before my time at Rosalind Franklin, there was a period of time where I didn't have a laboratory.  However, before that, I was an assistant professor in the Psychology Department at California State University, Fullerton; I left CSUF to move back to Chicago in 2013.  Several students (designated with an "*") were involved in presentations at professional conferences:

Even after I left California and students went on to doctoral programs, I kept collaborating with students from the lab.