Lab Members
Lab Coordinators
Senior Research Analyst
Postdoctoral Fellows
Graduate Students
Affiliated Scholars
Research Assistants
Lab Alumni
Lab Coordinators
Senior Research Analyst
Postdoctoral Fellows
Graduate Students
Affiliated Scholars
Research Assistants
Lab Alumni
Arielle Smith, B.A.
Arielle (she/her/hers) graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with a B.A. in Psychological & Brain Sciences in 2022, with a concentration in Experimental Psychopathology. Arielle’s research interests include depression, self-injury, suicidality, and eating disorders in youth, as well as the use of digital mental health interventions to increase treatment access. She intends to pursue a Ph.D. in clinical psychology.
E-mail: arielle.smith@stonybrook.edu
Ian Sotomayor, B.A.
Ian (he/they) is a Lab Coordinator in the Lab for Scalable Mental Health. He graduated from the University of Southern California in 2021 with a B.A. in Psychology, with honors, a B.A. in Philosophy, and a minor in Religion. They are interested in supporting communities vulnerable to heightened stress and adversity. Ian intends on pursuing a PhD in clinical psychology to develop research in brief interventions and offer clinical services to disempowered communities.
Email: ian.sotomayor@stonybrook.edu
Laura Jans, M.A.
Laura (she/her/hers) graduated from Stony Brook University with a B.A. in psychology, with minors in chemistry and biology, and with an M.A. in Psychology in 2022. Broadly, she is interested in the causes of and effective treatments for youth mental health problems. Additional interests include accessibility of mental health resources, risk factors for youth mental health problems, and the roles of family and parenting in a child’s well-being. In the future, she would like to pursue a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and hopes to work with children and adolescents.
E-mail: laura.jans@stonybrook.edu
Yama Chang, M.A.
Yama (she/her/hers) is a Senior Research/Data Analyst at the Lab for Scalable Mental Health. She graduated from Teachers College, Columbia University with an M.A. in Clinical Psychology in 2020. Overall, she's fascinated with anything data related. She plans to apply data-driven approaches to developing accessible, scalable interventions to ameliorate disparities in mental health care, particularly among sexual and gender minorities.
E-mail: ya-wen.chang@stonybrook.edu
Links: Website | Github
Arka Ghosh, Ph.D.
Arka Ghosh (he/him/his) is a postdoctoral fellow with Dr. Jessica Schleider at Stony Brook University. Arka is a recent graduate from the Biological Sciences and Bioengineering department of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. During his PhD, he developed a digital mental health intervention, TreadWill. He is primarily interested in developing digital mental health interventions and hopes to make evidence-based digital interventions available for free in low-income countries.
E-mail: arka.ghosh@stonybrook.edu
Atina Manvelian, Ph.D.
Atina Manvelian (she/her) is a Postdoctoral Fellow working with Dr. Jessica Schleider & Dr. Joanne Davila at Stony Brook University; she is also a Postdoctoral Affiliate at Stanford University for Dr. James Gross’ lab. Sponsored by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, Atina earned her PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Arizona. As a relationship researcher, Atina investigates how our social contexts give rise to attachment orientations or emotion regulation capacities that impact our mental health outcomes across the lifespan. As a clinical scientist, she is invested in developing scalable relationship interventions that target transdiagnostic mechanisms of change for disadvantaged youth. Through this work, she hopes to increase healthy relationship functioning and promote more positive views of self/other to improve the trajectory of people’s lives.
E-mail: atina.manvelian@stonybrook.edu
Links: Website
Erica Szkody, Ph.D.
Erica Szkody (she/they) is a recent Clinical Psychology graduate from Mississippi State University and an incoming Postdoctoral Fellow working with Dr. Jessica Schleider at Stony Brook University. Erica’s research focuses on understanding the contextual factors that influence social support behaviors. In the future, she plans to apply her research to develop culturally sensitive interventions that leverage healthy relationships to improve health outcomes.
E-mail: erica.szkody@stonybrook.edu
Mallory Dobias, M.A.
Mallory (she/her/hers) is a fourth-year Social/Health Psychology Ph.D. student at Stony Brook University. Her research focuses on improving access to evidence-based, affirming mental health supports for youth experiencing self-injurious thoughts and behaviors. She aims to (1) identify youth who are less likely to access traditional mental health treatments, (2) develop accessible, youth-centered mental health interventions, and (3) integrate these interventions within accessible digital and community-based settings.
E-mail: mallory.dobias@stonybrook.edu
Links: Website
Jenna Sung, M.A.
Jenna (she/her/hers) is a fourth-year Clinical Psychology Ph.D. student at Stony Brook University. Jenna graduated from Emory University with a B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Educational Studies. Her primary research goal is to increase access to mental health treatment by testing and disseminating accessible, scalable interventions that can address multiple level barriers to care. Jenna also aims to maximize the impact of this research by engaging with policy level work.
E-mail: jenna.sung@stonybrook.edu
Links: CV
Jenny Shen, M.A.
Jenny (they/them/theirs) is a fourth-year Clinical Psychology Ph.D. student at Stony Brook University. They graduated from the University of Toronto with a B.S. in Psychology and received an M.A. in Clinical Psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University. Jenny's research interests include (1) elucidating the impact of minority stress on mental health disparities among gender and sexual minorities, racial and ethnic minorities, and their intersections; (2) ameliorating the effects of such minority stressors through accessible, transdiagnostic interventions; and (3) identifying potential implications for policy. Jenny is also a student in Dr. Nick Eaton's lab and is co-mentored by Drs. Schleider and Eaton.
E-mail: jenny.shen@stonybrook.edu
Links: CV
Isaac Ahuvia, M.A.
Isaac (he/him/his) is a third-year Clinical Psychology Ph.D. student at Stony Brook University. Isaac graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in Sociology in 2016, and has worked at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine and the University of Chicago Poverty Lab. He is interested in individuals' beliefs about mental health and illness, as well as the social construction of mental illness more broadly. His research examines the relationship between individuals' beliefs about mental health and their mental health outcomes.
E-mail: isaac.ahuvia@stonybrook.edu
Links: Website
Riley McDanal, M.A.
Riley (she/her/hers) is a third-year Clinical Psychology Ph.D. student at Stony Brook University. She graduated from U.C. Berkeley with a B.A. in Psychology, where she studied idiographic network models of psychopathology under the mentorship of Dr. Aaron Fisher. Riley is interested in potential data-driven changes in the classification and treatment of mental health problems. She aims to leverage the integration of HiTOP and Network Analytic methods to inform transdiagnostic intervention efforts, particularly for LGBTQ+ youth and young adults. Riley is also a student in Dr. Nick Eaton's lab and is co-mentored by Dr. Schleider and Dr. Eaton.
E-mail: riley.mcdanal@stonybrook.edu
Links: Website
Katie Cohen, M.A.
Katie (she/her/hers) is a second-year Clinical Psychology Ph.D. student at Stony Brook University. She received a B.S. in Psychology from the University of South Carolina in 2019 and an M.A. in Clinical Psychology from Northwestern University in 2020. Katie is interested in the integration of non-traditional mental health interventions (single session interventions, mental health apps, peer support, etc.) into traditional settings frequented by youth and young adults (schools, primary care, etc.). She is committed to leveraging user-centered design and community-based participatory research methods in her work to ensure that interventions are designed to meet participants’ needs and minimize the research-to-practice gap.
E-mail: katherine.cohen@stonybrook.edu
Links: Website
Chantelle Roulston, B.A.
Chantelle (she/her/hers) is a first-year Clinical Psychology Ph.D. student at Stony Brook University. She graduated from Stony Brook University in 2020 with her B.A. in Psychology and Sociology. She is passionate about supporting underserved communities through her research, particularly youth of Color, LGBTQ+ youth, and youth living at the intersection of both identities. Specifically, Chantelle aims to use her work to help increase mental health support accessibility and to build and disseminate brief interventions with and for members of these communities.
E-mail: chantelle.roulston@stonybrook.edu
Dr. Schleider will not review applications for a new clinical psychology Ph.D. student for the 2023-2024 academic year. More information about Stony Brook University's clinical psychology doctoral program is available here, and more information about applying to join the Lab for Scalable Mental Health as a Ph.D. student is available here.
M.A. Students
Yuanyuan Yang
Yuanyuan (she/her/hers) graduated from Stony Brook University with a double major in Psychology BS and Applied Mathematics & Statistics. She is interested in studying the risk and protective factors in youth psychopathology. Furthermore, she is interested in evaluating the efficacy of mental health treatments and developing more accessible, effective, personalized, and cultural adaptive mental health interventions for underserved youth.
Briana Last, Ph.D.
Briana (she/they) is an IDEA Fellow at Stony Brook University. Briana is currently a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, where she has been generously supported by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Mental Health. She employs quantitative and qualitative methods to research the social determinants of mental health disorders and mental health service provision. Briana's academic mission is to ensure that everyone who needs mental health support can easily access and receive the highest quality services.
E-mail: briana.last@stonybrook.edu
Links: Website
Akash Shroff, B.S.
Akash (he/him/his) is an Affiliated Researcher and former Lab Coordinator with the Lab for Scalable Mental Health. He graduated from Stony Brook University in 2020 with a B.S. in Business Management and a minor in Chemistry. His years of work with children and adolescents at a socio-spiritual organization has led him to be interested in the behaviors and attitudes of young people. He is currently a medical student and aspires to a career in pediatrics and psychology research.
Sara Friedman, M.P.H.
Sara (she/her/hers) is a medical student at the Renaissance School of Medicine and an Affiliated Scholar at the Lab for Scalable Mental Health. She graduated from Harvard University in 2019 with her BA in Cognitive Neuroscience and Evolutionary Psychology and a secondary focus in Global Health and Health Policy. She then earned her MPH in Social Epidemiology from New York University in 2020. Her research interests include quality improvement interventions in the treatment of chronic disease, reducing the impact of the social determinants of health, and improving access to and the delivery of mental health treatment.
Maria Loades, DClinPsy, Ph.D.
Maria (she/her/hers) is a Clinical Psychologist and Reader (Associate Professor) for the Doctorate in Clinical Psychology programme at the University of Bath, UK. Maria has extensive clinical experience in child and adolescent mental health services in the National Health Service, England, and has a post-graduate diploma in cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) for children, young people and families. Maria has a strong interest improving access to early help for adolescent depression symptoms. This work includes improving mental health awareness, understanding and tackling barriers to problem recognition and help-seeking, and developing and evaluating online, single-session interventions which can be provided at scale. Her ambition is to expand on current provision, and to better meet the needs of those who are under-served by mental health provision, both in the UK and in low and middle income country contexts, like South Africa.
