I graduated from the MGH/McLean psychiatry residency and the PSTP program in 2019 and am currently participating in a new two-year combined clinical and research fellowship on the MGH Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry Service.
My past research experiences have primarily focused on cognitive development, interventions for autism spectrum disorders, unconscious influences on behavior, and the interface between psychiatry and other medical fields. I majored in Cognitive Science as an undergraduate at Yale and worked at Yale's Infant Cognition Center, a developmental psychology lab, as both a research assistant and ultimately lab manager. While there, I completed a senior thesis on theory of mind development in 14- and 18-month-old infants, which was funded by the Yale College Dean's Research Fellowship. Also while an undergraduate, I studied the “Macbeth effect,” a priming effect in which induced feelings of shame increase desires for cleanliness. I later worked for almost 2 years at the Center for Autism Research at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia on several projects including a computer game intervention aimed at enhancing face perception skills in children with ASD. As a medical student at Weill Cornell Medical College, I explored the neurochemical link between the mind and the skin and also worked on a project screening children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes for psychiatric symptoms.
My research interests evolved as I gained additional clinical experience over the course of residency and the MGH/McLean Psychiatry Residency program provided the flexibility, encouragement, and resources to pursue, cultivate, and clarify these interests. As an intern and PGY2, I participated in a chart review of children and adolescents with ASD hospitalized at MGH. At the end of my intern year, I began working with the Cardiac Psychiatry Research Program (CPRP) at MGH. Over the remaining three years of residency, I was thrilled to learn more about positive psychology interventions in medically ill patients and to develop a clinical intervention for patients with non-cardiac chest pain. As a research fellow, I will continue to work with the CPRP to examine research questions falling at the interface of psychiatry and other medical fields.
