Chandan Vaidya, Ph.D., Principal Investigator

Chandan Vaidya, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology and an investigator at the Center for the Study of Learning at Georgetown University. Her graduate training is in Developmental Psychology from Syracuse University and her post-doctoral training is in Cognitive Neuroscience from Stanford University. Her research aims at characterizing the neurobiological basis of cognitive control within working and long-term memory. She links behavior to brain by using paradigms from experimental psychology to isolate cognitive processes in healthy individuals, applying these paradigms to patients with disorders of those cognitive processes due to lesions, degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, or developmental disorders such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Autism, and imaging these cognitive processes in the brain using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
Curriculum Vitae

Devon Shook , Lab Manager

Devon graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in 2006 with a B.S. in Physics and Psychology. He coordinates ongoing projects in the lab, managing the various components of the research process. He plans to attend medical school in fall 2008.

Kelly Barnes, Graduate Psychology Student

Kelly graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2003 with a B.S. in Psychology. She is a fourth year graduate student in the Lifespan Cognitive Neuroscience track of the Psychology department's Ph.D. program. Her current research examines implicit learning processes in children with and without developmental disorders such as Autism Spectrum Disorder and Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. Kelly's research also utilizes functional and structural neuroimaging to study the neural correlates of implicit learning in children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Ericka Burgos, M.A., Graduate IPN student

Ericka is a second-year graduate student of the Interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience. She graduated from George Mason University with a B.A. in Psychology and, in 2005, an M.A. in Biopsychology. Her research interest is in reward systems in children with Attention Deficity/Hyperactivity Disorders. Her current project examines salience processing in children with and without ADHD.

Melanie Stollstorff, M.A., Graduate Psychology Student

Melanie received her B.Sc. at the University of Toronto, where she specialized in Physiological Psychology. Her Master's research investigated cognitive control in deductive reasoning using fMRI. Melanie is currently pursuing her Ph.D. degree in the Lifespan Cognitive Neuroscience Program in the Psychology Department at Georgetown. She is investigating reasoning, working memory and inhibitory control in children with ADHD. She wished to use genetics, fMRI and behavioral testing to understand better the brains of children with and without ADHD. She hopes that her research will lead to better diagnosis and treatment of the disorder.

Ben Yerys , Ph.D., Post-Doctoral Research Fellow

Ben is a post-doctoral fellow in developmental cognitive neuroscience in the Neuroscience Department at Children's Research Institute - Children's National Medical Center. Ben received his A.B in psychology from Washington University in St. Louis, MO in 1998. He attended the University of Denver's Clinical Child Psychology/Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience program and graduated with his Ph.D. in 2006. He spent his clinical internship year working at San Diego Children's Hospital and the UCSD Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Service. Ben's research focuses on cognitive and neural development of autism and other developmental disorders.

Undergraduate Research Assistants
Joshua Henderson
Michael Billington
Stephanie Bean
Christopher Tsang
Brett Robinson
Georgia Papatheodorou

Lab Alumni
Lauren Kaplan, Lab Manager 2003-2004
Sarah Noonan, Lab Manager 2001-2003
Mara Fleischer, Research Assistant 2004-2005
Jen Foss-Feig, Lab Manager 2004-2006
Philip Lee, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow
Marianne Huger
Casey Hoffman
Vanessa Rakaczky
Rosie Gomez-Lobo
Julie Balzano, Undergraduate Honors Thesis Student, 2003-2004
Sylvie Song, Rotating IPN Student, 2004
Laurie Glezer, Rotating IPN Student, 2004
Elizabeth Lacey, Rotating IPN Student, 2004
Jonathan Gardner, Undergraduate Research Assistant 2004-2005
Leslie Claracay, Undergraduate Research Assistant 2004-2005
Meg Benner, Undergraduate Research Assistant 2004-2006

Collaborators

Children's National Medical Center
Gerry Gioia, Ph.D.
William Gaillard, M.D.
James Herrera, M.D.
Laura Kenealy, Ph.D.
Lauren Kenworthy, Ph.D.

Georgetown University
Darlene Howard, Ph.D.
Barbara Schwartz, Ph.D.

University of Illinois at Chicago
Mark Stein, Ph.D.
Ed Cook, M.D.

Catholic University of America
James Howard, Ph.D.