Jeya Anandakumar
Jeya Anandakumar was an undergraduate student at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon. Jeya and Kate began working together when Kate was a post-doc at OHSU, while Jeya was still in high school. Jeya majored in biology and minoring in chemistry with a focus on neuroscience. Her research interest include developmental neuroscience and neurogenetics. In her free time, she enjoys playing the flute and taking dance classes.
Theresa Cheng
Dr. Theresa Cheng was a doctoral student in Developmental Psychology at the University of Oregon. She received her BA in Philosophy and BS in Biology at California State University, Los Angeles, and also holds an EdM in Mind, Brain, and Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She is primarily interested in understanding how adolescence may be a sensitive period of enhanced plasticity for social learning. This question has led her to examine puberty, stress, and different types of peer interactions in relation to the developing brain. A former middle and high school teacher, she is interested in the implications of developmental science in clinical and educational contexts. Outside of the lab, she enjoys the gorgeous greenery of Oregon and dabbles in cooking, language learning, and modern dance.
Karlena Ochoa
Dr. Karlena Ochoa was a doctoral student in the developmental psychology program at the University of Oregon. Her research interests broadly focus on children’s social-cognitive development during the preschool years. She is especially interested in children’s moral development. More recently she has examined prosocial behaviors in friendship groups during adolescence. Before coming to University of Oregon, Karlena finished her BA in 2014 and MA at California State University San Marcos.
Akhila Nekkanti
Dr. Akhila Nekkanti came to the Prevention Science doctoral program with a B.S. in Neuroscience and is currently studying under the mentorship of Dr. Elizabeth Skowron in the Family Biobehavioral Health Lab. Her doctoral research examined the impacts of early adversity on children’s executive functioning capacities and resting-state neural activity. Her long-term goal is to delineate the type and extent of environmental enrichment necessary for enhancing lasting change in self-regulatory capacity in children facing early caregiving adversity and trauma.
Clare McCann
Clare graduated June of 2020 from the University of Oregon with honors in Psychology, minors in Special Education and Women’s Gender & Sexuality Studies. She is now a graduate student in Jen Silvers’ lab at UCLA.
Aisha Ghorashian
Aisha was an undergraduate student studying Psychology and Political Science with a minor in Global Health. She is interested in public health, specifically in the context of child development, women’s health, and public policy.