Trainees
Current Predocs
Kalekirstos Alemu
Kalekirstos is a third year Clinical Science PhD student working at the Emotion & Cognition Lab under the mentorship of Mara Mather, PhD. His research interest focuses on examining age-related emotional and cognitive changes in older adults utilizing behavioral and multimodal neuroimaging techniques. Prior to coming to USC, Kalekirstos graduated from San Diego State University with a double major in Psychology and Health Science .
Aarthi Ganapathi
Aarthi is a second-year graduate student in the Clinical Science PhD program at USC under the mentorship of Bruna Martins-Klein, PhD. She received her bachelor’s degree in Neuroscience with a minor in Cognitive Science from UCLA in 2019. Her primary research interests include emotional coregulation and neural mechanisms of dyadic coping and well-being across the lifespan. Specifically, she is interested in tracking the unique biobehavioral responses of older adults when helping close loved ones regulate their emotions and cope with stressors.
Jillian Joyce
Jillian Joyce is a doctoral student in the Neuroscience Graduate Program working under the mentorship of Daniel Nation, PhD in the Vascular Senescence and Cognition (VaSC) lab. Her research interests focus on vascular aging and Alzheimer’s disease in older women. She graduated from Northeastern University with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology.
Brandy Weathers
Current Postdocs
Kristina Dang
Calley Fisk
Calley E. Fisk, PhD, received her doctorate in Sociology from the University of South Carolina. She examines the embeddedness of structural racism in the social, economic, and built environments of U.S. neighborhoods and the resulting impacts on wellbeing for older Black and White adults. Her most recent projects focus on the relationship between historical redlining and various aging related health outcomes, such as cognitive functioning and biological markers of advanced aging.
Phoebe Imms
Phoebe Imms, PhD, is interested in neuroimaging biomarkers of health and disease. Her research has spanned the fields of psychology, gerontology, and medical imaging. She has studied the structural connectome following traumatic brain injury, and how brain networks relate to cognitive dysfunction in patients with chronic cognitive impairments. In her postdoctoral position at the University of Southern California, she has continued to work towards understanding the neurological basis of brain injury and dementia. Her current focus is predicting future cognitive impairment in healthy older adults who progress to mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease.
Eric T. Klopack
Eric T. Klopack, PhD, is a postdoctoral researcher in the Leonard Davis School of Gerontology at USC. He received his doctorate in Sociology from the University of Georgia. His research focuses on the processes by which social circumstances and relationships interact with biological and developmental systems to produce inequalities in illness, aging, and mortality. He current research investigates how life experiences (especially early life adversity and social stressors) influence immunological aging and biological hallmarks of aging that may lead to impaired cognitive functioning, risk of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD), chronic disease morbidity, and mortality.
Aaron Lim, PhD
Aaron Lim, PhD, received his doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of California Los Angeles. His research interests include longitudinal predictors of financial exploitation vulnerability, health disparities in cognitive aging, and the effects of substance use on decision-making in older adults.
Addam Reynolds
Addam Reynolds, PhD, received his doctorate in social work from Rutgers University-New Brunswick. His research interests include understanding how intersecting social positions in childhood contribute to later life health and well-being. He is also interested in how social conditions get under the skin to contribute to disease and mortality among older adults. He is currently investigating how intersecting social positions (i.e., socioeconomic status, race and region) contribute to later life cognition and immunological functioning.
Past Predocs
Current positions may be out of date. Please check Google Search results or LinkedIn for most up-to-date positions for alumni.
Dawn Alley, PhD
Director, Prevention and Population HealthGroup
Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation
Joe Angelelli, PhD
Senior Advisor, Alternative Payment Models
UPMC Health Plan
Shelby Bachman, PhD
Graduate Research Fellow, University of Southern California
Jessica Brommelhoff, MPH, PhD
Principal Clinician, MedAvante, Bedford Massachusetts
Licensed Clinical Psychologist/Neuropsychologist, Specialized in Geropsychology
Lauren Brown, PhD
Assistant Professor,
USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology
Elisabeth Burgess, PhD
Director and Professor, Sociology and Gerontology
Georgia State University
Valeria Cardenas, PhD
Predoctoral Fellow
Hans Martin Dalton, PhD
Assistant Professor
University of Kansas
Marti DeLiema, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow, Stanford Univ. Center on Longevity, Financial Fraud Research Center
Carrie Donoho, PhD
Chief of Behavioral Epidemiology
Walter Reed Army Institute of Research
Charlotte Dunham, PhD
Associate Professor of Sociology
Director, Texas Tech Center for Women Studies
Texas Tech University
Kelly Durbin, PhD
F31 PhD Student
USC
Gillian Fennell, PhD
Postdoctoral Research Associate,
Boston University Medical Center
Stephen Frochen
VA Health Services Research and Development Fellow
VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare
Nicole Gatto, PhD
Associate Professor of Public Health
Director, Doctorate in Public Health Program
Claremont Graduate University
Haley Gallo, PhD
Researcher, Mathematica
Scott Hofer, PhD
Professor, Harald Mohr, M.D. and Wilhelma Mohr, M.D. Research Chair in Adult Development and Aging
Director, Institute on Aging and Lifelong Health Psychology
University of Victoria
Dom Grisafe, PhD
Postdoctoral Researcher
University of Southern California
Molli Grossman, PhD
Senior Specialist, Enrichment Programming
WISE & Healthy Aging
Amy Hammerquist, PhD
PhD Student
Dominique Ingegneri, PhD
Vice President, Health Care Economics
Medical Informatics at UnitedHealth Group
Chandra Ghosh Ippen, PhD
Psychologist, University of California, San Francisco
Dissemination Director, Child Trauma Research Program
Early Trauma Treatment Network of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN)
Ross Jacobucci, PhD
Assistant Professor of Psychology
University of Notre Dame
Brian Kaskie, PhD
Associate Professor
MPH in Policy Program, Health Management and Policy,
College of Public Health,
University of Iowa
Alice Kim, PhD
Morgan Levine, PhD
Assistant Professor of Pathology
Yale University School of Medicine
Nichole Lighthall, PhD
Assistant Professor of Psychology
University of Central Florida
Gerardo Marti, PhD
L. Richardson King Professor of Sociology
Department Chair
Davidson College
Teheran (Terry) Mills, PhD
Assistant Provost for Diversity and Inclusion
John Carroll University
Todd McCallum, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Psychological Sciences,
Case Western Reserve University
Brendan Miller, PhD
Kaoru Nashiro, PhD
Research Assistant Professor
Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, University of Southern California
James Nhan, PhD
Doctoral Student
Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, University of Southern California
Christy Nishita, PhD
Associate Specialist, University of Hawaii Center of Aging and Center on Disability Studies
Researcher and Gerontologist
Catherine Pérez, PhD
Gerontology Minor Coordinator,
Syracuse University
Norella Putney, PhD
Lecturer, Sociology
California State University, Los Angeles
Amber Watts, PhD
Assistant Professor of Psychology
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences,
The University of Kansas
Kristi Wisnieswski, PhD
Nicholas Woodward, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow, Keck School of Medicine,
University of Southern California
Linda Ann Wray, PhD
Associate Professor of Biobehavioral Health
The Pennsylvania State University
Yuan Zhang, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Carolina Population Center
Past Postdocs
Current positions may be out of date. Please check Google Search results or LinkedIn for most up-to-date positions for alumni.
Jennifer Ailshire, PhD
Associate Professor of Gerontology,
Leonard Davis School of Gerontology,
University of Southern California
Theresa Andrasfay, PhD
Postdoctoral Scholar,
Leonard Davis School of Gerontology,
University of Southern California
Sarah Barber, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Psychology
Georgia State University
Christopher Beam, PhD
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Department of Psychology
University of Southern California
Ryon Cobb, PhD
Department of Sociology, University of Texas at Arlington
Yeon Jin Choi, PhD
Mateo Farina, PhD
Assistant Professor at UT Austin
Kevin Feeney, PhD
Associate at Analysis Group in Boston, MA.
Megan Fitzhugh, PhD
Robert F. Kennison, PhD
Assistant Professor of Psychology
California State University, Los Angeles
Andy Jeesu Kim
Postdoctoral Scholar
Uchechi Mitchell, PhD
Assistant Professor
Community Health Sciences
University of Illinois, Chicago
Haena Lee, PhD
Postdoctoral Scholar – Research Associate
USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology
View Curriculum Vitae
Joseph Saenz, PhD
Assistant Professor
Leonard Davis School of Gerontology,
Anna Rahman, PhD
Research Assistant Professor
Leonard Davis School of Gerontology,
University of Southern California
Nicholas Resciniti, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
University of Southern California
Chandra A. Reynolds, PhD
Professor of Psychology
University of California, Riverside
Sandra L. Reynolds, PhD
Emeritus Faculty
School of Aging Studies,
University of South Florida
Jennifer Robinette, PhD
Assistant Professor
Crean College of Health and Behavioral Sciences; Psychology
Chapman University
Hiram Beltran-Sanchez, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Community Health Sciences, UCLA
Connor Sheehan, PhD
Assistant Professor,
Arizona State University