Lab Members

Professor

Sohee Park

Professor

Dr. Park’s research program lies at the intersection between clinical, cognitive and social neuroscience. Her lab studies the nature of cognitive and social functioning in individuals with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder and people at elevated risk for psychosis in order to elucidate the etiology and neural basis of psychotic disorders, and understand the complex relationships among clinical symptoms, cognitive deficits, and brain abnormalities.

Lab Managers

Yunlai Gui

Lab Manager

Yunlai recently graduated from New York University with a major in psychology and a minor in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Studies. Her main responsibility in the lab is running participants, assisting with research, and doing administrative work. Before coming to Vanderbilt, she worked with Dr. Cheryl Corcoran at the Mount Sinai Hospital, investigating risk factors and biomarkers for patients with psychosis. She is interested in emotional regulation, early adversity, and language deficits in people with psychosis. She also wants to explore more about how depression, anxiety, and psychosis together contribute to motor or bodily abnormalities, ideally with a cross-cultural approach. She plans to pursue a doctoral degree in clinical psychology in the future. In her free time, she likes gardening and hiking with friends!

Michael Sangimino

Lab Manager

Michael Sangimino recently graduated Vanderbilt with a double major in Psychology and Child Studies and a minor in business. As the lab manager, Michael serves as the point person for coordinating participants, handling the administrative side of things, and assisting on research. He is primarily interested in the intersection between psychosis and addiction, trauma, depression, and anxiety. In his free time, he is an avid reader and soccer fan and enjoys spending time with his large family. 135 first relatives and counting!

Fulbright Fellow

Anne Felsenheimer

Former Fulbright Fellow

Anne Felsenheimer is a M.D. and was a visiting Fulbright Scholar at Vanderbilt. Her work explores the intersection of words, meaning and context, with a focus on pragmatic language in psychiatric disorders. Her current research on the coupling of mind and body in the (de)coupling of word and meaning brings together both cognitive and embodied perspectives. Originally from Germany, Anne studied psychology, philosophy and medicine at the University of Heidelberg, Tübingen, Vienna and Charité Berlin before coming to Nashville. Her medical PhD focused on irony and metaphor comprehension in patients with schizophrenia and borderline personality disorder. She is currently doing her second PhD at the Max Planck School of Cognition, where she works with Patrick Haggard, Isabel Dziobek and Brigitte Röder focusing on body-mind interactions

Graduate Students

Tatiana Baxter

Third Year Graduate Student in the Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program

Tatiana completed her BA at Vanderbilt University in 2018 with majors in Psychology, Spanish, and History (European concentration). She is interested in examining cultural differences in the etiology and symptomology of psychosis and schizophrenia through the analysis of written narratives and language, particularly in the Latino community. Tatiana also endeavors to better understand bodily and emotional disturbances in individuals with schizophrenia and those at-risk for developing psychosis, in hopes of helping develop clinical interventions that can improve quality of life for these populations. In recognition of her prior scholastic accomplishments, Tatiana was selected as a Provost’s Graduate Fellow and is recognized as a Russell G. Hamilton Scholar. In addition, she was selected as a Research Training Fellow on the Developmental Psychopathology T32 Training Grant for 2023-2024. She is grateful to have the support of many, especially her constant companion and rescue dog, Jagger, who she has been training as a therapy dog.

Julia Lebovitz

Second Year Graduate Student in the Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program

Julia graduated from Stanford University in 2021 with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology (Neuroscience Track) and a minor in Human Rights. Prior to her Ph.D. program, she worked as a research assistant in the Mood and Psychosis Research Program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA. Julia is interested in how psychosocial factors impact psychosis phenomenology, specifically distressing hallucination content. She also hopes to explore protective factors that promote resilience in psychosis. In her spare time, Julia enjoys hiking, running, playing tennis, and spending time with her dogs (Nellie and Jack).

Hyeon-Seung 'Hanson' Lee

Sixth Year Graduate Student in the Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program

Hanson’s research aim is to identify what underlying cognitive-affective mechanisms of schizophrenia develop, maintain, and aggravate its symptoms. To investigate the mechanisms, he would like to probe the specific components under neurocognitive impairments, social dysfunction, or self-aberrations of schizophrenia using experimental, neurobiological, and behavioral methodologies. In addition, he is also interested in exploring intact abilities and cognitive potential in individuals with schizophrenia that would give clinical implication or an opportunity to reduce prejudice toward them. He is currently working on projects of VR based social simulation training, 3D body mapping, and Peripersonal space.

Katrina Rbeiz

Third Year Graduate Student in the Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program

Katrina graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a B.S. in Clinical Psychology and a B.A. in Global Studies. Prior to pursuing her PhD in Clinical Psychology, Katrina worked as a Post-Baccalaureate Program Coordinator at the Medical University of South Carolina. Her research interests broadly include addressing disparities in the measurement and diagnosis of schizophrenia spectrum disorders in people of different ethnic and racial backgrounds. She hopes to use a multi-method approach in identifying and treating the attenuated symptoms of psychosis in ethnic and racial minorities through developing culturally valid assessments and interventions. In her spare time, Katrina is an avid reader and a grocery store connoisseur.