Investigators

Kathryn Cullen, M.D. 

Dr. Cullen (she/her) is a Professor and Director of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Minnesota Medical School in Minneapolis. She received a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Chicago. She completed medical school, residency training, and child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship training at the University of Minnesota. She also completed a research training fellowship in Neurobehavioral Development at the University of Minnesota. She has been on the faculty in the Department of Psychiatry since 2008. Dr. Cullen's research focuses on adolescent depression, self-injury, and suicide risk in young people. Her research methods include brain imaging and longitudinal studies, including clinical trials. Her scope of work has recently expanded to include a focus on creativity, mental health, and the brain in young people. Dr. Cullen's current work is funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Minnesota Arts Board.

Bonnie Klimes-Dougan, Ph.D, LP

Dr. Klimes-Dougan is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Minnesota. She received a bachelor of science from Loma Linda University. She completed doctoral training in clinical psychology at Florida State University, completed her internship at Duke University and postdoctoral fellowship at the National Institutes of Mental Health. She was a faculty at the Catholic University of America before being hired by the University of Minnesota in 2004. Dr. Klimes-Dougan's research focuses on the stress system, considering risk and protective factors for distress, depression and despair in adolescents. 

Co-Investigators

Kristina Reigstad, PsyD, LP

Dr. Reigstad is a licensed child and adolescent psychologist and Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, at the University of Minnesota Medical School. She completed her doctoral degree at the University of St. Thomas, and completed her postdoctoral fellowship in clinical psychology and research in the Child and Adolescent Mood and Anxiety Disorders Program at the University of Minnesota Medical School. She has been on the faculty in the Department of Psychiatry since 2014. She has dedicated her career to team science and bridging the research to practice gap by improving clinical care and outcomes for adolescent depression and self-injurious behavior, maternal mental health, and for parents and families experiencing mental illness. She has focused on the development and evaluation of interventions for adolescent depression and self-injury, and improvement of the delivery of services for maternal mental health treatment, to ultimately aid in ameliorating the multigenerational impact of mental health disorders during sensitive periods of development (e.g., adolescence, during pregnancy/in-utero), and across the lifespan.

Alaa Abdalla, M.D. 

Alaa Abdalla (she/her) is a research scholar working primarily on the ABCD study and BRIDGES study under the supervision of Dr. Kathryn Cullen. She graduated from medical school and completed her residency training at Suez Canal University in Egypt. She also got an MSc degree in Psychiatry and Neurology from the same university. Her research interests include the underlying neural deficits of depression, self-injury, and other impulsive/compulsive problems in teens. In her leisure time, she likes to cook, play squash, and photograph! 

Kate Carosella

Kate (she/her/hers) is a graduate student in the Clinical Science and Psychopathology Research Doctoral Program. She graduated with a Bachelors of Science from Johns Hopkins University. She is interested in understanding the neural basis of maladaptive responses to stress such as self-injury and suicide. She hopes to elucidate how evolutionarily adaptive processes such as threat processing can go awry on the system neuroscience level and result in psychopathology. She loves baking, swimming, and cuddling her dog, Mozzarella!

Hopewell Hodges

Hopewell Hodges (she/her) is a PhD student in clinical and developmental psychology at the Institute for Child Development, after spending her BA and masters degree focusing on post-violence literature and collective resilience practices. In the long term, she hopes to partner with communities of diverse cultural backgrounds to design more effective and culturally appropriate trauma treatments that rely on locally effective resilience mechanisms. In addition to conducting assessments in the RAD Lab, Hopewell provides therapy to young children at the Behavioral Health Clinic for Families and the Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain as a practicum trainee. She is mentored by Dr. Ann Masten and Dr. Saida Abdi.

Tori Papke

Tori (she/hers) a graduate student in the Clinical Science and Psychopathology Research Doctoral Program. She started in the lab as an undergraduate volunteer in 2019 and has since graduated from the University of Minnesota with a B.S. in 2021 and worked as a project coordinator for the NAC Study. She is particularly interested in studying stress in relation to development and psychopathological outcomes, such as suicidality and self-harm. 

Andrea Wiglesworth

Andrea is a graduate student in the Clinical Science and Psychopathology Research Doctoral Program. She is interested in the relationship between forms of stress (e.g. minority stress in Native American populations, chronic stressors such as poverty, and childhood maltreatment) and suicidal thoughts and behaviors in childhood and adolescence. She examines neurobiological and psychophysiological mechanisms that may be related to these constructs.

Marvin Yan

Marvin is a graduate student in the Clinical Science and Psychopathology Research Doctoral Program. Prior to joining the RAD Lab, he completed a BA in cognitive science at the University of California, Berkeley and a MA in psychology at San Diego State University. Broadly, Marvin's program of research is focused on understanding the neural mechanisms underlying suicidality using a variety of tools and techniques including neuroimaging, neuromodulation, casual modeling, and wearable devices. Outside of research, he spends most of his free time training for ultramarathons. 

Shulang Yue

Shulang (she/her) is currently a graduate student in the Department of Psychology, Cognitive and Brain Sciences track. Her research interests include decision-making and creativity.

Zeynep Başgöze, Ph.D.

Zeynep (she/her/hers) is a Neuroimaging Research Scientist, working with Dr. Kathryn Cullen & Dr. Bonnie Klimes in the RAD Lab for almost four years. She received her BA degree from the Philosophy Department at the Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey. She completed her MSc and PhD in the Cognitive Sciences Department at the Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey. She worked as a postdoctoral fellow under the supervision of Dr. Emily Cooper in the Psychological and Brain Sciences Department at Dartmouth College, NH, USA, and in the Optometry School at the University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. She then worked as a Postdoctoral Associate under the supervision of Katie Cullen in the Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Department, University of Minnesota before she was promoted to a senior researcher position. Dr. Başgöze’s research focuses on adolescent non-suicidal self-injury, suicidal thoughts and behaviors, and adolescent & adult Major Depression Disorder, as well as brain plasticity, visual adaptation, and binocular vision. She is specialized in designing and analyzing both fMRI and psychophysical experiments.

Michaelle DiMaggio-Potter

Michaelle DiMaggio-Potter (she/they) is a Minnesota Inclusive Neuroscience Development Scholar in the RAD Lab and the Study Coordinator for the Creativity Camp and Imagination Central research projects. She is interested in investigating interpersonal dynamics and maladaptive coping mechanisms among individuals with personality disorders. Prior to joining the RAD Lab, they obtained their B.A. in Psychology from Columbia University, where they also researched music and cognition in Columbia's Developmental Affective Neuroscience Lab. They will be attending the University of Michigan in the fall of 2024 as a Clinical Psychology PhD student.

Josie Friedman 

Josie Friedman (she/her) is a study coordinator overseeing the Imagination Studio project in the RAD Lab. She attended the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, earning her B.S. in Psychology and B.A. in Human Physiology. Her research interests include minority stress and creativity-based interventions for depression. Outside of the lab, she enjoys baking, thrift shopping, and exploring the Twin Cities.

Zeba Kokan

Zeba Kokan (she/her) is a study coordinator overseeing the Native American Young Adult Study in the RAD Lab. She is also a MSc student in the Department of Social Policy & Intervention at the University of Oxford. She attended Purdue University, earning her B.S. in Brain & Behavioral Sciences and B.A. in Global Studies. Her research interests include youth mental health, resilience, healing, trauma, and health justice.

Aparna Nair

Aparna Nair (she/her) is a research staff primarily involved in the BRIDGES and the TMS research studies in the RAD lab. She received her B.S. in Psychology from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Her research interests include cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying depressive disorders and personalized antidepressant treatments. 

Curry Chang

Curry (he/him) is currently a junior undergraduate student from Taiwan majoring in psychology B.A with an intended minor in Sociology. He wants to pursue PhD in clinical psychology with a focus on teenager and adolescent mental health and suicidal prevention. To work with RAD Lab, he would like to get hands-on experience with research and functional machines such as fMRI. Besides academic work, he also enjoys playing basketball, tennis, traveling, volunteering, camping, and music production.

Olivia Costa

My name is Olivia (she/her) and I am a third year student majoring in Psychology and minoring in Neuroscience and Spanish. After graduation, I plan to pursue a PhD in Clinical Psychology, and my research interests center on identifying approaches to improve the mental health of adolescents with intersectional identities (e.g. LGBTQIA+ and Latine). As part of RADLab I worked on the Creativity Camp Study project, which was a great opportunity to learn how to run a research study and analyze data. The RADLab provided me with research experience relevant to my interests and fueled my curiosity in the study of human behavior.

Quincey Feragen

Quincey (she/her) is an undergraduate honors student pursuing a B.S. in Psychology with a minor in Neuroscience. She wants to pursue a PhD in Clinical Psychology with a focus in Clinical Neuropsychology. With the RAD lab, She hopes to gain more insight into the neurobiological processes involved in psychological disorders. Outside of academia, she enjoys kickboxing, hiking, music, and reading. 

Jordan Frederiksen

In RAD lab, my current activities involve primarily data entry, organization, and triers. My data entry primarily involved physical into digital versions of the data collected over the years. Over the spring and early summer semester, I helped a grad student with her systematic review of early life stress. I'm interested in personality disorders as I feel as it's a neglected and stigmatized area in psychology/psychiatry. In my Intro to Abnormal Psychology class with Dr. Klimes-Dougan, the textbook Abnormal Psychology by Hooley, Nock & Butcher stated that many with borderline personality disorder are rejected by therapists and clinical psychologists due to their nature. This shouldn't be the case. Long-term, I intend to start with an MD and work towards a specialty in psychiatry. These plans may change as I want to do a mixture of clinical psychology and psychiatry, as I want to blend the fields in terms of their treatments.

Aly Hayashi

Hi, my name is Aly and I am a junior majoring in Neuroscience and Japanese on the pre-med track. I am very interested in anxiety and depression and want to learn more about their neurobiological processes. In addition, I'm interested in learning how to predict and use preventative measures in young children to lessen the probability of depression and anxiety. I intend on pursuing medical school and possibly an MD/PhD.

Zay Hayee

I'm Zay (she/her), a third year undergrad in the Psychology program with a minor in Spanish. My main interest areas in Psychology are adolescent/developmental, mood and anxiety disorders (from a clinical and research perspective), and research procedures and ethics. I'm also interested in raising awareness about mental health conditions and struggles within the SouthAsian community. Down the line, I would like to go to grad school and work in research and academia. Outside of school, work, and lab, I enjoy reading, cooking, watching TV shows, and hiking.

Paityn Ness

Paityn Ness is currently a junior studying in the lab as a research assistant. She has interests in the fields of sports psychology, genetic counseling, and mental health studies. Paityn loves yoga, being outside, baking, and spending time with friends. Some long-term goals for Paityn are to go to graduate school and receive her Masters and possible PhD in psychology. 

Riddhi Suresh

Riddhi (she/her) is a sophomore studying psychology and computer science on the honors and pre-med track. Her interests include learning about the biology behind mental disorders as well as the influence of external factors on mental health. In her free time she enjoys music, cooking, and spending time with friends and family. After undergrad, she aims to attend medical school.

Payton White

Payton (She/Her) is a second-year undergraduate honors student pursuing a BS in Psychology with a neuroscience minor. In the future, she wants to pursue a PhD in clinical psychology. Drawn to the clinical research done by RAD lab, she hopes to learn the neurobiological processes and long-term effects of anxiety and depression to find new ways of prevention in adolescence, as well as among the LGBTQIA+ community. Outside of RAD lab, she loves music, playing guitar, thrifting, trying new foods, and cheering on the Golden Gophers as a Gopher Football student assistant.