Trainee Committee

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!

Da-Yea Song is a PhD student at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she works under the mentorship of Drs. Heather Volk and Calliope Holingue. Her research focuses on unraveling the complexities of brain development in autism and its developmental trajectories by integrating genetic, neuroimaging, and behavioral data. She is also passionate about examining the interplay between mental and physical health to promote well-being in individuals and families affected by neurodevelopmental disorders. Fun fact: Da-Yea loves discovering new hobbies and is currently learning to play the drums.

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!

Ellyn Butler is pursuing a PhD in Clinical Psychology and an MS in Applied Statistics at Northwestern University as part of the Affective & Clinical Neuroscience Lab, working under the supervision of Professor Robin Nusslock. Ellyn studies how various dimensions of threat impact the brain to lead to mental illness during adolescence. Specifically, she has studied how violence impacts neuroimmune functioning to lead to internalizing symptoms, and salience network expansion and connectivity as mechanisms connecting violence with depression differentially across the sexes. Ellyn is also very interested in developing and validating personalized brain network methods, and improving the use of causal inference approaches in developmental psychopathology and human neuroscience. Fun fact: Ellyn started to apply her training as a classical flutist towards learning how to dance salsa during graduate school!

Shannon Cahalan is a PhD candidate at George Washington University under the mentorship of Dr. Gabriela Rosenblau. Shannon studies the behavioral and neural mechanisms underpinning social learning differences in autism spectrum disorder. She is also interested in the cognitive mechanisms underlying sex/gender differences and variability in adaptive outcomes in ASD. Fun fact: Shannon is a former collegiate swimmer and now runs half and full marathons.

Victoria Dionisos is a second-year PhD student at the University of Pittsburgh, working in the Laboratory of Neurocognitive Development under the mentorship of Dr. Bea Luna. Before starting her graduate work, she studied neuroscience at Dickinson College and worked at Bradley Hospital’s Sleep Research Laboratory studying neurocognitive development in ADHD. Victoria's current work investigates neurobiological mechanisms, including synaptic pruning, neurite density and myelination, that support the development of brain networks related to inhibitory control and other cognitive functions in the transition from adolescence to adulthood. Fun fact: Victoria performs in a Greek folk dance group.

Lucia Hernandez-Pena is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge, working with Prof. Sarah-Jayne Blakemore on microstructure brain development and its relation to cognition and mental health during adolescence. Her research interests are developmental psychology and the neural mechanisms underlying social cognition, including empathy, theory of mind, decision-making, aggression and risk-taking behaviour. Fun fact: Lucia once had a dragon as a pet (note: a bearded dragon).

Muskan Khetan is a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne, supervised by Professor Sarah Whittle. Her work investigates how pubertal hormone dynamics shape brain development and emotional functioning in adolescent females. By integrating multimodal neuroimaging with longitudinal hormone data, she aims to clarify the neural and biological mechanisms that contribute to early-emerging mental health vulnerabilities. Fun Fact: Muskan is a trained dancer in contemporary and hip-hop and is now immersing herself in Kathak (an Indian classical dance form).

Boglarka Zsofia Kovacs (she/her), is a doctoral student in the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry/Psychology Department at Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, under Prof. Dr. Neeltje van Haren. Her research within the FAMILY consortium focuses on intergenerational transmission of risk and resilience through brain development. Boglarka is passionate about studying the fetal and neonatal origins of health and disease, particularly how early environment influences brain developmental trajectories and psychiatric outcomes. Her current projects explore prenatal parental psychosocial impacts on neonatal brain structure; intracranial volume as a neurodevelopment biomarker; and neuroimaging differences in children of parents with severe mental illnesses. Fun fact: She loves challenging herself with new adventures, from ice plunges to silent retreats.

Steven is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania in the lab of Ted Satterthwaite. His research focus is on using diffusion-weighted imaging to characterize early life white matter development and its susceptibility to psychiatric risk factors, such as premature birth. He is also passionate about open and reproducible science, acting as a moderator of the NeuroStars.org community forum. Outside of lab, he enjoys running, playing jazz vibraphone, and smoking meat.

Mackenzie Mitchell is a postdoctoral researcher, working with Dr. Caterina Gratton at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. During her PhD, Mackenzie studied functional brain network organization underlying cognitive control in children and adolescents. In her postdoctoral work, Mackenzie is investigating how functional brain network organization differs across the span of adulthood and supports higher-order cognitive functions in older adults. She is particularly interested in how individual differences in brain networks relate to trajectories of cognitive control across the lifespan.

Destiny Wright is a PhD student in Clinical Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh, where she works under the mentorship of Dr. Beatriz Luna in the Laboratory of Neurocognitive Development. Her research focuses on understanding how the developing brain changes during adolescence to support goal-directed behaviors, particularly by examining hippocampal excitatory-inhibitory balance using 7T magnetic resonance spectroscopy and its role in refining decision-making circuitry. Fun fact: Destiny is an aspiring fantasy novelist who loves creating intricate worlds and is currently working on a morally grey dark fantasy featuring diverse characters—and she designs her own book covers.