2021-2022 LabRATS
Brien Culhane ‘22
Brien is a senior psychology major, music minor, and Posse scholar from Miami, Florida. His interests are in clinical psychology and outdoor therapy. Before joining the LabRATS in 2020, Brien conducted research with Dr. Kristi Multhaup studying music and auto-biographical memory. After graduating, he plans to pursue a Ph.D. in clinical psychology. In 2020, Brien presented a co-authored poster with LabRATS alumni Emily Redler, Isabella Pallotto, and Mimi Webb at the annual meeting of the Association for Behavioral & Cognitive Therapies.
Catie Holshouser ‘22
Catie is a senior psychology & economics major from Charlotte, N.C. She joined the lab in the summer of 2020, working on a project evaluating women’s leadership and service roles in a major professional organization for clinical psychologists. Catie presented a poster based on her research at the 2020 annual meeting of the Association for Behavioral & Cognitive Therapies. During the academic year, Catie serves as a student assistant for the Psychology and Environmental Studies Departments. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, playing guitar, and baking.
2020 LabRATS
Frannie Esposito ‘22
Frannie is a rising senior psychology major from Baltimore, MD. She is on the pre-medicine track and is interested in psychiatry. Before joining the LabRATS in the summer of 2021, Frannie worked as a tutor at the Ada Jenkins Center during the school year. She also enjoys cooking, traveling, and watching movies.
Alex Johansen ’23
Alex is a rising junior psychology major from Boca Raton, Florida. Her interests include clinical psychology and neuroscience. Prior to joining the LabRATS in the summer of 2021, Alex worked for the Psychology and Environmental Studies Departments and volunteered with Ramirez Lab. In her free time, she enjoys playing piano, painting, and spending time at the beach. After graduation, she plans on pursuing a M.D. in psychiatry.
2020 Lab Alumni
Emily Redler, ‘20 Emily was a member of the LabRATS throughout her four-year career at Davidson, from 2016 through 2020. She graduated with a major in psychology and a minor in data science. In the lab, Emily took the lead on a series of studies investigating women’s representation in clinical psychology. In 2018, she received a Davidson Research Initiative Grant to extend this research to include archival records representing 30 years of women’s participation in the field. She has presented findings from these studies at annual meetings of the Association for Behavioral & Cognitive Therapies and the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Personality & Social Psychology. Emily’s interests include social, clinical, and industrial/organizational psychology. In Fall 2020, Emily will begin the Ph.D. program in Organizational Science at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. Maria Rojas, ’21
Maria, a rising senior psychology major with a minor in French and Francophone Studies, was a LabRAT from 2017 through 2019. She is a Posse Foundation Scholar from Miami, FL. Her interests are in social and clinical psychology. Maria has presented her work in the lab at the 2018 and 2019 annual meetings of the Association for Behavioral & Cognitive Therapies.
Mimi Webb, ‘20
Mimi was a member of the LabRATS in the fall of 2019, and completed her B.S. in psychology from Davidson College in 2020. She has special interests in clinical psychology as well as in child development. Mimi plans to begin a Ph.D. program in school psychology in the fall of 2020. In her free time, Mimi loves to run, go to the lake with friends, and eat anything sweet!
2019 Lab Alumni
Isabella Pallotto, ’19
Isabella was a member of Dr. Sockol’s lab from 2017 through 2019. She graduated from Davidson College in 2019 with a B.S. in psychology and a minor in health and human values. In 2018, Isabella received a Davidson Research Initiative Grant to study disordered eating behaviors in collegiate student-athletes. She built on this research in her senior thesis with Dr. Lauren Stutts.
Isabella is currently completing her Master of Public Health in Health Behavior in a two-year program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Since graduating, she has also worked as a curriculum specialist at the American Youth Foundation’s 2019 National Leadership Conference and is collaborating with Dr. Sockol and Dr. Stutts to publish results of her senior thesis. She is looking forward to getting involved in research at UNC, hopefully in a vaccine behavior lab, but is enjoying classes for now!
2018 Lab Alumni
Miriam Donner, ’18
Miriam was a member of Dr. Sockol’s lab in the fall of 2018, when she completed an independent research study, “Gender Differences in Parental Influences on Eating Attitudes and Behaviors in Undergraduates.” She graduated from Davidson College in 2018 with a B.S. in psychology with a minor in educational studies. Miriam is currently in the second (and final!) year of the Master of Social Work program at the University of Pennsylvania, where she is specializing in clinical social work. In 2018-2019, she worked in a K-8 public school in southwest Philadelphia providing mental and behavioral health support to students and their families. Currently, she is providing outpatient therapy to clients ages 6-60 at Hall Mercer Community Mental Health Center at Penn Medicine.
Nahomie Exantus, ‘20
Nahomie was a member of Dr. Sockol’s lab from 2017-2018. She is a senior psychology major and Posse Scholar from Miami, FL. Nahomie’s interests include clinical psychology, medical psychology, and increasing awareness of mental differences in urban communities.
Katie Little, ‘18
Katie was a member of Dr. Sockol’s lab from 2016-2018. She graduated from Davidson College in 2018 with honors in psychology. Katie’s honors thesis research investigated the relationships among parental divorce, adult attachment and relationship outcomes during the transition to parenthood. Katie is now a first-year Clinical Psychology Ph.D. Student at the University of Miami as part of the Child Track. She works with Dr. Kristin Lindahl and is currently planning for her master’s thesis using data from a longitudinal study on outcomes for lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth and their parents after disclosure of youth’s sexual identity.
Rosie Major, ‘18
Rosie graduated from Davidson College in 2018 with a major in Gender & Sexuality Studies. She was an honorary member of Dr. Sockol’s lab during the 2017-2018 academic year, when she used methodology from clinical and social psychology in her GSS senior thesis, “Decolonizing Fat: Fat Liberation Media as a Potential Intervention in Bias.” Findings from Rosie’s thesis have been presented at both the National Women’s Studies Association annual meeting in 2018, as well as the 2018 annual meeting of the Association for Behavioral & Cognitive Therapies. Rosie is currently in her second year of law school at Cornell University.
Will Thurston, ’19
Will was a member of Dr. Sockol’s lab from 2016 through 2018. He graduated from Davidson College in 2019 with a degree in psychology. In Summer 2017, Will received a George L. Abernethy Endowment Grant to support work on a study of college students’ responses to the use of media in the classroom. Will’s interests include clinical and industrial/organizational psychology.
2017 Lab Alumni
Alex Casper, ‘17
Alex was a member of Dr. Sockol’s lab from 2016-2017. He graduated from Davidson College in 2017 with a B.S. in psychology. In the lab, Alex worked on a study of college students’ responses to uses of popular media in the classroom. He also presented research on social value orientation and its effects on political prejudice at the National Conference for Undergraduate Research in April 2017. Alex is interested in education research and non-profit work.
Julia Relova, ‘18
Julia was a member of Dr. Sockol’s lab from 2016-2017. She graduated from Davidson College in 2018 with a B.S. in Psychology. After graduation, she worked with summer programs at Harvard University before beginning her current position as a Program and Event Coordinator for Notley Ventures, a company focused on social impact and impact investing, in Austin, Texas. In her spare time, Julia reports that she is “dancing with elementary school kids and individuals with Down syndrome through different nonprofit organizations and volunteering at Dell Children’s Medical Center through Ronald McDonald House Charities of Central Texas. But, in all honesty, there’s nothing I miss more than learning about psychology and get my fix through books and podcasts.”
Monica Pradel, ’17
Monica was a member of Dr. Sockol’s lab from 2016-2017. She graduated from Davidson College in 2017 with a B.S. in psychology and a minor in health and human values. In the lab, Monica assisted with recruitment efforts for a variety of studies, including a study of college students’ responses to uses of popular media in the classroom and a study of first-time parents’ experiences during the transition to parenthood. Her interests include clinical psychology, bioethics, and healthcare.
Erica Robinson, North Carolina A&T
Erica was a member of Dr. Sockol’s lab in the summer of 2017. Erica is a student at North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University, and received a Davidson Research Initiative Grant for Historically Black Colleges & Universities to support full-time summer research in the lab. Erica worked on a study of gender differences in risk factors for disordered eating attitudes and behaviors, which she presented at the Davidson College Summer Research Symposium in September 2017. Her interests include biology and psychology.
2016 Lab Alumni
Susanna Vogel, ‘16
Susanna was a member of Dr. Sockol’s lab in 2016. In the lab, she helped design a study investigating college students’ responses to the use of various media in classroom settings. She graduated from Davidson College in 2016 with a B.S. in psychology. After graduating, Susanna worked as a research assistant at the Kellogg School of Management for two years before transitioning into her current role as a statistical assistant with Mathematica Policy Research.
Williams Lab Alumni
Lillian Audette, Williams College ‘15
Lillian was a member of Dr. Sockol’s lab at Williams College in the summer of 2014. She worked on a range of projects, including a literature review of interventions for perinatal anxiety, recruitment for a study of fatherhood, and a study of undergraduate women’s stress. She graduated with a B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Neuroscience from Williams College in 2015. She completed an M.S. in Counseling Psychology from Loyola Maryland University in 2017.
Lillian is currently a doctoral candidate at Tennessee State University’s Counseling Psychology Ph.D. program. Her dissertation, which is part of a larger NSF grant on underrepresented groups in STEM, is investigating whether the underrepresentation of women in STEM majors is related to gender-based agentic and communal value differences in an HBCU population. Her general research interests include women’s psychology and methodology.
Caitlin Bird, Williams College ‘14
Caitlin Bird ’14 was a member of Dr. Sockol’s lab at Williams College in 2013-2014. She graduated with a major in Psychology and a concentration in German in 2014. After graduating from Williams, she went on to attain an M.S. in Science Journalism at Boston University in 2016. She now lives in Boston and works as a Deputy Production Editor for Cell Press. Life highlights include adopting two cats, visiting Japan, and taking up art again.
Rachel Caffey, Williams College ‘14
Rachel was a member of Dr. Sockol’s lab at Williams College from 2013-2014. She earned her B.A. in Psychology, with a minor in Africana Studies, from Williams College in 2014. She went on to earn her M.S. in Education from the University of New Haven in 2016 and an M.A. in Community Psychology (Clinical/Counseling) from the University of New Haven in 2018. During her degree, Rachel completed her clinical fieldwork in trauma-centered psychotherapy with the Post Traumatic Stress Center in New Haven, CT, and interned as a trauma counselor in the New Haven Public Schools. Currently, Rachel is a Special Education preschool teacher in Peabody, MA where she works with students with Autism Spectrum Disorders and significant developmental delays.
Ellen Finch, Williams College ‘16
Ellen was a member of Dr. Sockol’s lab from 2014-2015, and continued to collaborate with Dr. Sockol during the 2015-2016 academic year. In 2016, she presented findings from this work at the annual meeting of the Association for Behavioral & Cognitive Therapies. Ellen graduated from Williams College in 2016 with a B.A. in psychology. After graduation, Ellen worked as a research assistant at McLean Hospital under the mentorship of Drs. Lois Choi-Kain and John Gunderson. She is currently a second-year student in the doctoral program in clinical science at Harvard University.
Natalie Szykowny, Williams College ’14
Natalie was a member of Dr. Sockol’s lab in 2014, when she worked on a project investigating gender differences in students’ stress as they transition from college to the workforce. She presented findings from this research at the 2014 annual meeting of the Association for Behavioral & Cognitive Therapies. Natalie is a fifth-year student in the PGSP-Stanford Psy.D. Consortium. She is currently completing her predoctoral clinical internship at the Philadelphia VA.
Keiana West, Williams College ‘18
Keiana graduated from Williams College in 2018 with a B.A. in Psychology and a concentration (minor) in Africana Studies. Keiana was a member of Dr. Sockol’s lab in the summer of 2015, assisting with a literature review on psychotherapies for postpartum depression and conducting data analyses investigating demographic correlates of impaired mother-infant bonding. Keiana presented findings from this research at the 2015 meeting of the Association for Behavioral & Cognitive Therapies. Her experience in Dr. Sockol’s lab helped propel her into the Allison Davis Research Fellowship, through which she worked on a range of community-based research projects. In the summer of 2017, she worked in the Center for Adolescent Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School on research investigating public health interventions in Black churches in Baltimore. Her honors thesis at Williams consisted of a series of studies addressing race and gender bias in causal attributions for student misbehavior in Massachusetts public schools. Keiana recently returned from South Africa, where she completed the Princeton in Africa Fellowship working at an education non-profit as a Monitoring & Evaluation Fellow. In January 2020, she began a two-year fellowship at Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama, after which she intends to begin graduate school.
