Past Members

Erin Laciny
elaciny@artsci.wustl.edu Clinical Study Coordinator

Erin received her bachelor's degree in May of 2001 from the University of Missouri-Columbia in nutrition and fitness and in December of 2004 completed her master's degree in exercise physiology from Southern University Illinois-Edwardsville. Erin has been working at Washington University since 2001.Erin's main responsibility is the coordination of research studies for the Head Laboratory and the imaging core for the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (ADRC). Currently she is study coordinator for the ADRC's Common Anatomic Protocol (CAP) study that uses functional and structural MRI scans to examine changes in the brain in demented and non-demented study volunteers. Another study she coordinates is a MRI/PET study that examines what factors are important in determining when amyloid is deposited in the brain and whether the presence of amyloid deposits is hereditary.

Julie Bugg
jbugg@wustl.edu Post-Doctoral Fellow

Julie completed her Ph. D. at Colorado State University in 2006 and is currently a NIA post-doctoral fellow in the Head Lab. Broadly speaking, she is interested in cognitive control, and factors impacting the efficiency of control processes including age, disease (e.g. dementia), physical exercise, cognitive training, and time of day. Julie is exploring these factors using a variety of approaches, including basic behavioral methods and structural imaging. In addition, Julie is developing a functional neuroimaging study (with Todd Braver and Larry Jacoby) exploring conflict monitoring and cognitive control mechanisms underlying Stroop performance.

Lina Sestokas
losestok@artsci.wustl.edu Graduate Student

Lina graduated from Harvard University in the spring of 2005 with a major in psychology and spent the year after graduation as a Gates Scholar at Cambridge University working on her Master's degree. She successfully defended her Master's dissertation, which compared the residual capacity for remembering faces in individuals with prosopagnosia and amnesia, in the fall of 2006. As a clinical psychology graduate student in Denise Head's lab, she plans to extend her work with face memory to healthy aging populations, as well as begin new lines of cognitive and imaging work with other memory-impaired groups.

Marlisa Isom
misom@wustl.edu Clinical Study Coordinator

Marlisa graduated from SIUE in December 2003 with a B.S. in Psychology. She joined the Head Laboratory in June 2005 as a Research Assistant and was engaged in a project that examined the effects of hypertension and aerobic fitness on frontal-striatal circuits and executive control functions in nondemented older adults, including minority and lower socioeconomic individuals.In spring of 2007, Marlisa became Research Coordinator and shifted to working on the Common Anatomic Protocol. Marlisa plans to pursue a PhD in cognitive neuroscience to apply the skills she has acquired to research in clinical populations.

Patrick Flanagan
psflanag@artsci.wustl.edu Research Assistant

Patrick graduated from Washington University in 2007 with a B.A. in Psychology and Human Resources Management. He joined the Head Lab in August 2007 and is currently collecting MRI and neuropsych data from older adult participants for the Genetics/PIB project. Patrick also collaborates with the Memory Lab at Washington University investigating how cognitive psychology can be applied to enhance educational practice.

William Janes
wjanes@wustl.edu Research Assistant

Bill graduated from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville in 2004 with a B.S. in Psychology and Sociology. He is currently collecting MRI and neuropsych data from older adult participants for the Genetics/PIB project. Bill is also examining existing data from ADRC Psychometric examinations and multiple MRI modalities in an attempt to connect vascular function, white matter integrity, and cognitive performance among older adults with Type II Diabetes. Bill plans to enroll in the Occupational Therapy Program at Washington University in the Fall of 2007.

Rachel Bock
rhbock@wustl.edu Work-Study Student

Rachel is working on the Spatial Navigation project.

Tanya Antonini
antonini@wustl.edu Work-Study Student

Tanya is majoring in psychology and is interested in clinical child neuropsychology. She has worked in the lab through the work study program for five semesters. Her responsibilities included the scoring of neuropsychological tests, data entry and data verification. She is back in the lab this summer collecting data for the Spatial Navigation study.

Orli Pinsberg
Research Assistant

Orli is currently a freshman at Washington University, where she is majoring in Psychology. She is a research assistant in the lab, working on projects that investigate age differences in prospective memory and thinking skills.

Daniela Costardi
Visiting Fellow

Daniela is a Psychologist from Italy. She spent a year in the lab through the ADRC. Her ongoing work is examining the switch effect.

Kelly Donahue
Work-Study Student

Kelly was a Work Study Student. She graduated in Spring 2006.

Matt Riedel
mattriedel@earthlink.net Work-Study Student

Matt is currently a Junior majoring in Biology and Psychology at Washington University, as well as pre-med. He is working on the Diabetes and Cognitive Aging Project and the LEAP project with Julie Bugg.

Lauren Ruth
lruth@tulane.edu Summer Research Trainee

Lauren is entering her senior year at Tulane University where she majors in psychology and philosophy. At Tulane, she spent 2 years working in an I/O lab under Dr. Ronald Landis comparing single versus multiple item measures in job satisfaction. Currently, she is preparing an honor's thesis studying the connection between motor stereotypes and social anxiety in autistic children. As a participant in the WashU NSF REU this summer, she is working under mentor Julie Bugg and helping with the LEAP Project and a project studying cognitive inhibition. She hopes that by this time next year, she will be accepted to a clincal psychology Ph.D. program with a focus on women's studies.

Ashlie White
anwhite@LearnLink.Emory.Edu Summer Research Trainee

Ashlie is entering her senior year at Emory University. She currently studies psychology and religion and hopes to apply these fields of study while she pursues a doctorate of medicine in the upcoming years. At Washington University this summer, Ashlie is working under Dr. Head and works on the LEAP project, a project studying attention and other inhibitory processes, and the Diabetes project. This is her first time pursuing psychological research, but in her final year at Emory she will be researching sleeping and dreaming and working in Dr. Nowicki’s lab.