People
Director
Lea Rose Dougherty (she/her) is a clinical psychologist and Associate Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychology and the Graduate Program in Neuroscience and Cognitive Science at the University of Maryland (UMD) College Park. She is the Director of Clinical Training for UMD’s Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program. Her research focuses on developmental psychopathology, particularly mood disorders in children and adolescents. She has published over 100+ scientific papers and was awarded the APS Janet Taylor Spence Award for Transformative Early Career Contributions and the UMD Excellence in Research Award. Her research, which has been supported by NIH-funded grants, investigates mood problems in early childhood; the intergenerational transmission of depression; the role of the family context and other environmental factors (e.g., early life stress, poverty, extreme climates/pollution) in risk for psychopathology; neural mechanisms of risk and resilience for mood problems; long term course of early mood problems; mental health disparities in LGBTQ+ youth and social determinants of these disparities; and development of scalable interventions to prevent the development of mood problems in youth.
You can learn more about her research here.
Post-Doctoral Fellows
Alyssa Parker is a Post-Doctoral Associate working with Dr. Dougherty and Dr. Wiggins on the ABCD Youth Irritability Project. Prior to coming to the University of Maryland, Alyssa received her Ph.D. from The Catholic University of America in Applied/Experimental Psychology and B.A.s from the University of California, Berkeley in Psychology and Statistics. At Catholic University, Alyssa worked with Dr. Nancy Adleman in the Cognitive and Affective Neurosciences Lab, using both cognitive and neuroimaging techniques to examine the interaction of emotion and attention. Alyssa's current research interests center on the neural and cognitive mechanisms associated with the development and maintenance of psychopathology in children and adolescents. In her free time, Alyssa likes to go on hikes in the DMV area and read dystopian novels .
Graduate Students
Leah Sorcher is a third-year graduate student in the Clinical Psychology doctoral program. She received her BA in Neuroscience from the University of Pennsylvania in 2018 with minors in Psychology and Spanish. Following graduation, Leah spent two years as a postbaccalaureate research fellow at the National Institute of Mental Health studying structural and functional neural correlates of Williams syndrome. Her current research interests include understanding how early experiences contribute to risk or resilience in developing psychopathology as well as using multimodal methods to study youth irritability and emotion regulation. Outside of the lab, she enjoys reading, crossword puzzles, and baking.
Samantha Hubachek is a fifth year graduate student in the Clinical Psychology doctoral program at the University of Maryland working with Dr. Lea Dougherty in the Big Emotions Across Development Lab. She graduated with a B.A. in Psychology from the University of California, Berkeley in 2015. At UC Berkeley, she worked in the Gopnik Cognitive Development Lab with Drs. Alison Gopnik and Caren Walker, studying the development of relational reasoning in early childhood, and in Dr. Sheri Johnson’s Cal Mania Program, examining psychophysiological correlates of emotion in bipolar disorder. After graduating, she worked with Dr. Anne Richards in the San Francisco VA Medical Center Stress and Health Research Program for three years, coordinating the NAPS Study, an investigation of the role of REM sleep in fear-learning and emotional memory in PTSD using psychophysiology. Sam is interested in risk and resilience factors in the development of depression and mood dysregulation in children who have experienced early life stress.
Leslie Jordan is a PhD candidate in the Neuroscience and Cognitive Science (NACS) program and a fellow in the Computation and Mathematics for Biological Networks (COMBINE) program. Prior to joining the lab, she received a master’s degree in Clinical Health Psychology from the University of Michigan Dearborn. Leslie has also worked in out-patient clinical practice settings, where she provided psychotherapy and conducted neuropsychological evaluations. Her education and professional experience aroused a curiosity to investigate the neurobiological correlates of mental health. Her future goals include developing neuroimaging data analysis skills by working with the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) dataset to explore the neural mechanisms of preadolescent irritability during inhibitory control. In her free time, Leslie enjoys kayaking, paddleboarding, and hiking. When she needs an escape from reality, she immerses herself in the virtual world of Beat Saber and throws her energy into mastering songs.
Annika Quam is a first year graduate student in the Clinical Psychology doctoral program. She graduated with BAs in Psychology and Medicine, Health, and Society with a minor in Quantitative Methods from Vanderbilt University in 2022. At Vanderbilt, she worked with Dr. Amy Booth in the Little Learners Lab, studying the effectiveness of reading interventions across socio-economic status, and Dr. Bruce Compas in the Stress and Coping Lab, applying ecological momentary assessment to understand the types of stressors and coping strategies used by children with and without adverse life experiences. Following graduation, Annika spent two years as a postbaccalaureate research fellow at the National Institute of Drug Abuse under Dr. Amy Janes, examining the neurological relationship between childhood trauma, emotional awareness, and nicotine use. Annika’s research interests focus on the intersection of neuropsychology, early life adversity, and emotion regulation in adolescence.
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Sarah Yoon is a first-year graduate student in the Master of Professional Studies in Clinical Psychological Science at UMD and has recently joined the BEAD lab. She graduated from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor with a B.S. in Psychology in 2023. During her undergraduate years, she was a research assistant for the Evolutionary Social Psychology Lab under the supervision of Dr. Josh Ackerman. She also worked as an academic peer advisor in the Department of Psychology, where she provided guidance and support to her fellow undergraduate students throughout their academic journeys. Sarah's research interests include depression and anxiety disorders in children and adolescents. She is particularly interested in understanding how various cultural and environmental factors impact the development of these disorders within minority populations. Outside of academics, she enjoys spending time with her friends, watching movies, and working as a barista.
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Madelyn Burke is a Master's student in the Clinical Psychological Science program at UMD. In the spring of 2023, she graduated from Purdue University with a B.S. in Psychological Sciences. As an undergraduate student, she worked as a research assistant focusing on intimate partner violence under the supervision of Dr. Christopher Eckhardt. She also worked as a mental health
technician providing mental health care to patients with drug and alcohol addictions. Madelyn’s current research interests include child irritability and anxiety across development. In her free time, she enjoys going to sports games, hanging out with friends, and traveling.
Denise Kesselring-Dacey is a Master’s student in the Clinical Psychological Science MPS program at UMD. She graduated from Virginia Tech in Spring 2024 with a B.S. in Psychology and a B.S. in Human Development. As an undergraduate she worked as a research assistant under Dr. Heather Davis examining binge eating and food insecurity and in her final semester became a project coordinator for the lab. She also completed a field study under the supervision of Dr. Lee Cooper at the Psychological Services Center at Virginia Tech. She joined Dr. Cooper's lab as a research assistant during her senior year to investigate diagnostic tools for ADHD. Denise’s current research interests include etiology, affect, mood disorders, emotional dysregulation, treatment, and how parenting styles and gender may impact these constructs. Outside of academics, she enjoys traveling, spending time with friends, reading, and watching movies/TV.
Post-Baccalaureate Researchers
Olivia Cutshaw is a post-baccalaureate research assistant for the Brains In Growth-Emotions project and the lab manager for the BEAD lab. She received her Bachelor of Science degree in psychology from the University of West Florida. During her undergraduate years, she conducted research in the Children’s Self Regulation Lab at the University of West Florida and in the Center for Childhood Resilience at Northwestern University. Her current research interests revolve around the ways that caregiving, early life adversity, and children's temperament contribute to socioemotional development in early childhood. In her free time, Olivia loves to try new coffee shops and restaurants and take dance classes in the DMV area.
Undergraduate Research Assistants
Hannah Braimoh
Yara Ayache
Maya Bhattiprolu
Sophia Moore
Stephanie Aybar Bueno
Emma Lin
Ariella Ball
Marissa Edelman
Noah Meltzer
Rion Kato
Kathryn Wolfthal
Srihita Mylavarapu
Shira Huebner
Eesha Thakkar
Collaborators
Sara Bufferd, Ph.D.
Child Anxiety and Mood Lab
University of Louisville
Kirsty Clark, Ph.D.
Vanderbilt University
Arianna Gard, Ph.D.
Growth and Resilience Across Development (GARD) Lab
University of Maryland
ABCD Youth Irritability Project
Daniel Klein, Ph.D.
Klein Developmental Psychology Lab
Stony Brook University
Thomas Olino, Ph.D.
Child and Adolescent Development of Emotion, Personality, and Psychology Lab
Temple University
ABCD Youth Irritability Project
John Pachankis, Ph.D.
Yale LGBTQ Mental Health Initiative
Devon Payne-Sturges, Ph.D.
Maryland Institute for Applied Environmental Health
Jeremy Purcell, Ph.D.
Maryland Neuroimaging Center
University of Maryland
ABCD Youth Irritability Project
Tracy Riggins, Ph.D.
Neurocognitive Development Lab
University of Maryland
Jason Smith, Ph.D.
Department of Psycholgy
University of Maryland
ABCD Youth Irritability Project
Yukari Takarae, Ph.D.
Translational Emotion Neuroscience and Development Laboratory (TENDlab)
University of California San Diego
ABCD Youth Irritability Project
