Our Team

Elena grew up in Beijing, China before coming to Wisconsin for high school. She graduated from Grinnell College with a B.A. in psychology and a concentration in neuroscience in 2023. As an undergraduate, she worked as a research assistant in Dr. Ann Ellis’ lab at Grinnell College and as a summer research intern in Dr. Kathryn Humphreys’ Stress and Early Adversity Lab at Vanderbilt University. In the EEDP, Elena will be working on participant scheduling, administering interviews, and conducting MRIs on the SLEEP study and the NeuCorE studies. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, playing badminton, and spending time with her cats. She is also obsessed with detective/mystery/crime films or TV series. 

Morgan graduated from Washington University in St. Louis in 2021, where she earned her B.A. in Psychological and Brain Sciences and her B.A. in Anthropology: Global Health and the Environment. In the EEDP, Morgan coordinates the NeuCorE and NeuCorE+ studies, conducting clinical parent interviews and fMRI scans with our child participants. Morgan has also assisted in the bigger EEDP with the our studies of longitudinal predictors of borderline personality disorder as well as with the MESY study, helping to coordinate the Effortless Assessment of Risk States (EARS) cell phone application component. Morgan says she most enjoyed creating and sustaining meaningful connections with the families who make our research possible.

After working full time in the EEDP for several years, Morgan now works part time while also enrolled as a full time masters degree student in the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University.

Maida grew up in St. Louis and completed a BSc in Neuroscience and Molecular Biology with a minor in Psychology from the University of Toronto in 2021. As an undergraduate, she conducted research in molecular biology at the University of Toronto and in neuroscience at Washington University in St. Louis. She is now a fourth year medical student at Washington University and has been involved with Psychiatry research for the past two years. She began working with Dr. Vogel-Hammen in 2023 looking at the association between externalizing diagnoses and suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Under the mentorship of Dr. Vogel-Hammen, she was selected as a recipient of the 2024 AACAP Summer Medical Student Fellowship program to present findings on the increased risk for suicidal thoughts and behaviors in children with externalizing diagnoses and depression. This year, she plans to apply to Psychiatry for residency with the ultimate goal of going into Child Psychiatry.

Kiran earned her B.A. in Cognitive Neuroscience in the Psychological & Brain Sciences department at Washington University. She worked as an undergraduate research assistant in the Early Emotional Development Program (EEDP) for two years during her studies and completed a senior thesis on childhood factors affecting the development of borderline personality disorder. As a full-time research assistant in the EEDP, Kiran conducted MRIs and clinical interviews with the NeuCORE+ study and was also involved in data analysis, literature reviews, and writing for publication. Her work resulted in several first author publications and a presentation at the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatrists Annual Meeting in 2022.

Sam Norwitz completed his B.A. in Biology, Neuroscience, and Children’s Studies at Washington University. He worked as an undergraduate research assistant for three years in the Cognitive Control and Psychopathology (CCP) Lab, the Humman Connectome Project (HCP), and the Department of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry where he completed an honors thesis on the neural correlates of emotion regulation and reactivity in excitability and irritability with implications for ADHD. He is now pursuing a PhD in Medical Science at the University of Cambridge and the NIH with the support of the Gates Cambridge Scholarship as well as the NIH Oxford-Cambridge Scholarship before returning to the States for medical school. His long-term goal is to become a physician-scientist with a focus on pediatric neuroscience, seeking international dialogue and research collaboration in bettering the lives of children with neurodevelopmental challenges.

Fariha Rashid is a third-year medical student at University of Louisville School of Medicine. She graduated from Saint Louis University in 2019 with her B.A. in Biology and Psychology. Fariha worked as a research assistant in the Early Emotional Development Program (EEDP) for two years while completing her Master of Science in Applied Health Behavior Research at Washington University School of Medicine. As a research assistant, Fariha trained undergraduate students on novel behavior ratings of emotion dysregulation in preschoolers. Under the mentorship of Drs. Vogel, Luby, and Hennefield, she was selected for the 2022 AACAP Summer Medical Student Fellowship program to present findings on the effect of PCIT-ED on conflict-resolution strategies in depressed children. She is currently a 3rd year medical student, still interested in Child Psychiatry!

Ben earned his B.A. in Mathematics from Swarthmore College and his M.D. at Washington University. He did research for three years in the Early Emotional Development Program (EEDP) while pursuing his M.D. Under the mentorship of Dr. Vogel-Hammen, he published a first-author paper in The Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry on early childhood predictors of adolescent borderline personality symptoms. Ben is currently a psychiatry intern at Mount Sinai Hospital where he is involved with research on psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy.