Emilia Mikrut

Emilia received her PhD in clinical psychology in 2024 from St. John’s University where she was in the Collaborative Health Integration Research Program. Her research examines the impacts of social determinants on mental and physical health, with a focus on social-cognitive mechanisms. Emilia completed her internship at the US Department of Veterans Affairs in Manhattan, New York. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University's Counseling and Psychological Services center.

Gaspar J. Cruz

Gaspar is a Clinical Research Coordinator at the Center of Behavioral Cardiovascular Health at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. He received his Master’s in Healthcare Administration at the Mailman School of Public Health in 2022. His research involves biopsychosocial determinants of health by leveraging technological devices and wearables. Most notably he is chairing a recently funded initiative to combat institutional racism and uplift the voices of the Washington Heights community.

Ana Chkhaidze

Ana received her BA in Psychology in 2022. Her honors thesis investigated the effects of bedtime device use on sleep among young adults and is currently under review at a behavioral medicine journal. She worked as a clinical research coordinator in the Dept of General Internal Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai on a study of the long-term health effects of COVID-19. She began the PhD program in Clinical Psychology at St. John’s University in September 2024.

Jovanka Noel

Jovanka received her BA in psychology the spring of 2020. Her honors thesis examined whether physical activity can buffer symptoms of psychological distress among college students with poor sleep. For two years, she worked as a Clinical Research Coordinator on two longitudinal studies at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She is currently a medical student at the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell.

Abbey Stein

Abbey received her BA in Clinical Psychology in Spring 2024. In the CHiC lab, Abbey completed her senior honors thesis on the unmet social support needs of parents who are caretakers for their young adult children with cancer. She is currently a clinical research coordinator at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and intends on continuing to do research on therapeutic interventions for caregivers prior to pursuing a PhD in Clinical Psychology.

Aysha Khan

Aysha received her BA in Clinical Psychology in Spring 2024. In the CHiC Lab, she studied the moderating role of a collectivist mindset on the relationship between adverse childhood experiences and mental health. Aysha is currently a Clinical Research Coordinator at the Mount Sinai Center for Stress, Resilience, and Personal Growth, where she studies mental health and resilience in healthcare workers. She plans on pursuing a PsyD in clinical psychology.

Javier Torres

Javier earned his BA in Psychology in Spring 2024. He completed a STANDOUT fellowship in the Division of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine, where he studied psychosocial adjustment to chronic conditions and interventions for advanced cancer survivors. He also examined the feasibility and acceptability of Ecological Momentary Assessments in Depressed Older Adults with Multimorbidity. He is currently preparing to pursue a master’s degree in data science.

Isabel Rodriguez

Isabel graduated from Hunter College in 2024 with a major in Health Psychology and a minor in Sociology. She has particular interest in socio-economic health disparities and women's health. She intends to pursue a Masters of Public Health with a focus in Biostatistics.

Safia Bacchus

Safia received her bachelor's in Clinical Psychology in Fall 2023, with a double minor in Public Health and Women and Gender studies. Currently, she is continuing her internship at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where she is assisting in Behavioral Cancer Prevention and Control research.

Melanie Abbondola

Melanie received her MA in General Psychology in Spring of 2023. Her master’s thesis researched the potential moderating roles of compensatory social support and coping strategies in the relationship between ACEs and mental health outcomes. Currently, she is a first-year doctoral student in the School-Clinical Child Psychology PsyD Program at Yeshiva University. Her clinical interests include adverse childhood (and adolescent) experiences and how they affect the course of a person’s life.

Nicole Aglialoro

Nicole received her BA in Health Psychology in Spring of 2023. In the CHiC lab, she worked on STEP-US and a review paper on chronic pelvic pain in women. She completed a STANDOUT fellowship at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in the Population Health Science and Policy department. Now, Nicole is a Clinical Research Coordinator at the Tisch Cancer Institute at Mount Sinai, where she is screening patients, entering data, and processing blood samples for cancer clinical trials.

Jonathan Kogan

Jonathan received his BA in Health Psychology Spring of 2023. His honors thesis researched the effects of ACEs and different coping styles on depression and anxiety among young adults. Since graduating, he works as a research assistant for the Suicide Research and Prevention Lab at Mount Sinai and is pursuing his MS in Psychology from Palo Alto University, with the ultimate goal of getting a PhD in Clinical Psychology and becoming a professor.

Liza Roychowdhury

Liza received her BA in Middle Eastern Studies from Columbia University in 2019 and completed her post-baccalaureate pre-medical requirements at Hunter College from 2020-2022. She worked in clinical research at Mount Sinai Icahn School and Medicine and at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. She is currently enrolled in an MS/MD program at the Drexel University College of Medicine. She aims to use her medical and research experiences to serve vulnerable communities as a future physician.

Brandon Fernandez Sedano

Brandon received his Bachelor's in Psychology in the Spring of 2022. His honors thesis examined whether perceived control moderates the relation between socioeconomic status and quality of life among older adults with multimorbidity. He currently is a clinical research coordinator at The Center for Behavioral Cardiovascular Health (CBCH) at Columbia University Iriving Medical Center. He plans on beginning graduate school in 2025 to earn his doctorate in Clincial Health Psychology.

Johanny Mercedes

Johanny graduated from Hunter College in 2022 with a BA in Psychology, and a minor in Community Organizing. She is currently working as a Medtech at an urgent care and as a Research Assistant in Dr. Angela Pinto’s Healthy Habits Lab, examining facilitators and barriers to healthy eating and physical activity. At Hunter, she worked with doctoral student Sugandha Gupta on her study of cultural and familial determinants of physical activity among Southeast Asians with uncontrolled hypertension.

Mariska Kop

Mariska received her BA in Psychology and Studio Art in 2021. In the CHIC lab she worked with Irina Mindlis on a study of thyroid cancer. After that, she worked as a RA with Dr. Christine Rini at the Northwestern University School of Medicine to help implement an expressive helping intervention aimed to reduce physical and psychological distress among stem cell transplant recipients. She received a Master’s degree in Social Work at the Hunter College Silberman School of Social Work in 2024.

Monalisa Mdachi

Simona Lysakova

Simona graduated in May 2020 with a B.A. in Human Biology. She worked as a scribe for CityMD and is now a medical student at the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine. With doctoral student Caroline Zimmermann she continues her work on a systematic literature review of the psychosocial impacts of stigma in chronic skin disease populations.

Leslie Puebla

Romario Nelson

Sara E. Fleszar-Pavlovic

After graduating from Hunter College in 2015, Sara was a Senior Clinical Research Coordinator for two years at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research at Northwell Health on digital applications for patients with cancer. She received her PhD in Health Psychology in 2022 from the University of California, Merced. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Cancer Control Training in Disparities and Equity Program at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Miami.

Rebecca Cipollina

Dr. Cipollina (she/they) is an Assistant Professor in the Psychology Department at University at Buffalo. She completed a PhD in social psychology at Rutgers University-New Brunswick and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS at Yale. Her research documents key mechanisms through which belonging to a stigmatized group worsens feelings of belonging and the mental health outcomes of people with non-visible and visible stigmatized identities.

Keith Anne Ilagan

Keith received a Masters in Physician Assistant Studies at the fellow CUNY School of Medicine. She graduated with the Class of 2020 Didactic Achievement Award. Her clinical experiences spread to various public settings in the New York City area. As a new graduate, Keith joined the medical workforce as a Hospitalist PA at Bellevue Hospital in the midst of a global pandemic. She also works for the NYS Department of Health at a local COVID-19 testing site.

Catherine Ubri

Catherine is a Neuroscience PhD candidate at the University of Pennsylvania, where she researches fear extinction deficits and frontolimbic circuit impairment following traumatic brain injury (TBI). Her thesis work aims to elucidate the mechanisms that contribute to the development of maladaptive fear and related neuropsychiatric disorders in TBI survivors.

Lily McFarlane

After graduating from Hunter College in 2018, Lily worked as a research assistant at the Institut Curie in Paris and then with Dr. Christine Rini at the Northwestern/Feinstein School of Medicine to help implement an expressive helping intervention aimed to reduce distress among stem cell transplant recipients. She is completing her Master’s degree in Social Work program at the University of Southern Maine. Her field work is at the Portland Public Schools Multilingual and Multicultural Center.

Karina Spivak

Karina is a Senior at Hunter College majoring in Clinical Psychology with a focus on Child Development. Her goal is to learn how to conduct and stay current with research, enhancing her future as a Child Psychologist. Karina envisions pursuing a PsyD in Child Psychology, aiming to contribute to evidence-based practices and make a lasting impact on the lives of children and families.

Paige Beaucant

Paige received her bachelor's in Psychology in Spring 2023. She is working at Revcore Recovery, a substance abuse outpatient clinic that also provides mental health services, anger management, parenting skills, and sex offender treatment.