Trainee Committee

Niamh MacSweeney is a postdoctoral research fellow at the PROMENTA Research Center, University of Oslo, and Diakonhjemmet Hospital. She works with Christian K. Tamnes and studies how structural and functional brain development relate to depression risk during adolescence with a particular focus on puberty and co-produced research methods. Fun fact: Niamh loves cold water swimming and swims year round in the sea, a hobby that has become much chillier since moving to Norway!

Phoebe Thomson is a postdoctoral fellow in the Autism Center at the Child Mind Institute, New York, USA. She works under Adriana Di Martino, MD, and studies brain development in toddlers, children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Fun fact: She has a niche obsession with highland cows.

Felicia Hardi (she/her) is a PhD student at the University of Michigan working primarily with Drs. Christopher Monk and Luke Hyde. Felicia studies how early environment and brain function/structural network interact to confer risk and resilience for mental health. Fun fact: When she lived in NYC, she used to do her 11-mile commute on the bike. One of her bucket list items is to do a coast-to-coast bike tour.

Lucy Zhang is a PhD student at the University Melbourne at the Social and Affective Neurodevelopment Lab, working under the supervision of Prof. Sarah Whittle. Lucy research focuses on studying the concept of resilience, as defined as the ability to ‘bounce’ back from adversity, in adolescents and young adults with experiences of childhood adversity. Specifically. she hopes to look at how environmental, temperamental, and neurobiological factors foster resilience during adolescence, as well as how it relates to mental health and psychosocial outcomes in young adulthood. Fun fact: Lucy is a dog and a cat person! She owns two cats and a dog.

Michelle Shipkova is a PhD student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill working with Drs. Kristen Lindquist, Margaret Sheridan, and Eva Telzer. She is interested in using neurobiological methods to study how emotion concept knowledge, early adverse life experiences, and social factors (peers, caregivers) contribute to the development of emotion in childhood and adolescence. Fun fact: Michelle trained as an actor from childhood through college!

Courtney Gilchrist is a postdoctoral researcher in the Victorian Infant Brain Studies Group at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Melbourne, Australia. Courtney is interested in how perinatal factors shape the course of brain development, with a particular focus on preterm birth, fetal growth restriction and prenatal alcohol exposure. Her current work characterizes structural brain development in children born moderate/late preterm and how this relates to cognition, behavior, and mental health.  Fun Fact:  She enjoys staying active and has recently climbed all 7300 steps in Australia’s largest Stadium for charity.

Yara Toenders, PhD (she/her/hers) is a Healthy Start Fellow at Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Yara studies mental wellbeing of adolescents, and biological factors associated with mental wellbeing. She is specifically interested in how sleep and brain development affect mood in youth. Fun fact: She secretly enjoys assembling Ikea furniture.

Plamina Dimanova is a postdoctoral researcher, working with Prof. Nora Raschle at the Jacobs Center for Productive Youth Development at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. During her PhD, Plamina studied the structure of the corticolimbic circuitry and its association with emotion regulation and well-being outcomes with a special focus on intergenerational transmission effects. In her current projects, she continues the investigation of the developmental trajectories of the corticolimbic tract and is interested in multi-brain studies in broader context. Fun fact: Plamina used to have various pets, including a parrot, dogs, fish, a guinea pig, and a snail.

Amanda Boyes is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Thompson Institute, University of the Sunshine Coast. She works across the Youth Mental Health program under the leadership of Professor Daniel Hermens. Her research looks at associations between brain structure, wellbeing, and subclinical mental ill-health in adolescence using data collected as part of the Longitudinal Adolescent Brain Study (LABS) on the Sunshine Coast, Australia. Fun fact: Amanda was violinist in a folk-pop band during her undergrad years!

Jin Wang is a postdoctoral research scholar working with Dr. Nadine Gaab at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She obtained her Ph.D. in 2022 under the supervision of Dr. James R. Booth at Peabody Psychology and Human Development at Vanderbilt University. Her research focuses on how phonological, semantic, and syntactic processing develops and how those linguistic processes are associated with reading and math development in young children from early infancy to later elementary years. Fun fact: Jin loves baking cakes and sharing them with friends.

Damion Demeter is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California San Diego working with Dr. Deanna Greene. His primary research uses Precision Functional Mapping to investigate the functional organization of brain networks during development in both typically developing and clinical populations. Fun fact: Damion enjoys medium format photography and hunting down vintage twin-lens cameras.

Simone Dobbelaar, PhD (she/her) is a postdoctoral researcher at Leiden University, The Netherlands, working with prof. dr. Berna Güroğlu. Her research focuses on the role of peer experiences in children’s and adolescents’ social and neural development, with a specific focus on behaviors such as aggression regulation, prosocial behavior and reward processing. Fun fact: During her PhD she studied twins, and she has a twin sister herself!

Nim Tottenham, PhD is a Professor of Psychology at Columbia University and Director of the Developmental Affective Neuroscience Laboratory. Her research examines brain development underlying emotional behavior in humans. In particular, her laboratory investigates the interplay between brain development and the special caregiving experienced by humans. Her research has highlighted fundamental changes in brain circuitry across development and the powerful role that early experiences, such as caregiving and stress, have on the construction of these circuits. She has authored over 125 journal articles and book chapters. She is a frequent lecturer both nationally and internationally on human brain and emotional development. She is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and of the Society for Experimental Psychologists, and her scientific contributions have been recognized by the National Institute of Mental Health BRAINS Award, the American Psychological Association’s Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contribution to Psychology, most recently by the National Academy of Sciences Troland Research Award.