Principal Investigator
Post-Docs
About Patrick
Patrick has a background in experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience and completed his PhD at Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre at The University of Melbourne, under the mentorship of Professor Ben Harrison. Using lab-based behavioral studies and 7-Tesla fMRI, his doctoral research used novel iterations of the ‘Pavlovian conditioned inhibition’ paradigm to characterize safety learning, the process by which a stimulus comes to predict the absence of threat. He is interested in integrating principles of associative learning theory with contemporary behavioral neuroscience methods (e.g., neuroimaging), with the aim of producing richer brain-based characterizations of behavioral processes, including those implicated in the pathophysiology & treatment of psychiatric illness (e.g., PTSD, anxiety disorders, & others). Outside of research, his interests include music, film, books, travel, & meditation.
About Alyssa
Alyssa completed her PhD in Neuroscience at Emory University under the mentorship of Dr. Jennifer Stevens at the Grady Trauma Project. Her doctoral research focused on sex differences and longitudinal changes in emotion-related brain function following traumatic events, and utilized functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the effects of exogenous estradiol on fear extinction learning in women with PTSD. She is interested in the use of virtual reality and neuroimaging to understand emotional learning, with the goal of characterizing brain processes implicated in psychopathology (PTSD, anxiety). Alyssa’s hobbies include hiking, all sorts of art, playing the piano and ukulele badly, reading, video games, and hanging out with her dog, Mabel.
About Shaira
Shaira completed her PhD in Psychology at the University of Cambridge, mentored by Professor Amy Milton and Professor Trevor Robbins, where her research focused on Behavioural Neuroscience. Her work investigated the effects of threat on learning in individuals with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, using virtual reality experiments developed in collaboration with BAFTA award-winning video games studio Ninja Theory. At UT Austin, she continues to pursue her research interests in threat learning and mental health in the Dunsmoor and NeuroTap Labs, with a focus on PTSD, fear extinction, neuroimaging and computational neuroscience methodologies. Shaira is involved in the creative scene outside of her academic research and enjoys filmmaking and theatre.
Graduate Students
Lingwei Ouyang
About Lingwei
Lingwei received her Bachelor of Arts degree in translation from Zhejiang University, China. After graduation she studied Cognitive Science in Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she volunteered at Dr. Daphna Shohamy’s lab to understand how curiosity affects memory. Then she worked for three years at Stanford (Dr. Vinod Menon) and UCSF (Dr. Srikantan Nagarajan) on various topics, such as language processing in primary progressive aphasia, using MEG/fMRI methods. In her PhD she wants to explore how prediction errors affect fear extinction. Besides research, she enjoys ballet, playing the piano, exploring the city and trying new things such as pottery.
Lab Manager
Skye Waterland
About Skye
Skye received her B.S. in Public Health with a certificate in the Pre-Health Professions from the University of Texas at Austin in August 2023. Since graduating, she has worked various roles across public health, healthcare and research at the Department of State Health, Dell Seton Medical Center and finally Dell Medical School. Her passion lies in approaching healthcare with a humanistic lens, centering equity and access in mental health. She plans on eventually going to graduate school in the future, which could include a MD, PhD or both! Her research interests include understanding both the behavioral and biological factors behind psychiatric illness at the individual level to reduce morbidity and mortality population outcomes. In her free time, she likes to go to the gym, dance, cook and play board games with family and friends.
Research Assistants
Harini Vijayanarashiman
About Harini
Harini is a second-year undergraduate student majoring in Computational Biology. Her research interests include how trauma and emotions shape long-term memory and contribute to disorders like PTSD, anxiety, and depression. After graduation, she plans attend medical school while continuing to be involved in clinical research that focuses on understanding and treating mental health conditions. In her free time, she enjoys trying new foods/cafes, reading, and traveling!
Isabel Zhang
About Isabel
Isabel is a first-year undergraduate Public Health student with research interests in biomedical imaging and neurobehavioral studies. She joined the Dunsmoor lab to gain exposure to research bridging neuroscience and clinical application. After graduation, she plans to pursue medical school and is interested in a future career in dermatology. In her free time, she enjoys all forms of art, including reading, ceramics, and dance.
Affaan Hakeem
About Affaan
Affaan is a second year Neuroscience major at the University of Texas at Austin. His research interests include using conditioning and axonal regeneration to combat neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s. After graduation, he hopes to attend medical school and become a neurologist. In his free time, he enjoys biking, playing basketball, and spending time with family and friends.
Kyra Arora
About Kyra
Kyra is a second-year student at the University of Texas at Austin studying psychology. Her research interests include trauma, learning, and neurodevelopment, with a focus on how emotion and stress influence memory, learning, and the regulation of maladaptive responses. Post-graduation, she plans to pursue a master’s degree or PhD in clinical psychology. In her free time, she enjoys hiking and exploring trails, trying new coffee and food spots, and spending time with family and friends.
Samuel Yang
About Samuel
Samuel Yang is a first-year Nursing major at the University of Texas at Austin. His research interests include memory, neural stem cells for CNS regeneration, and the use of virtual reality to understand fear and emotional learning. After graduation, he hopes to pursue medical school or an MD/PhD program to become an orthopedic surgeon. In his free time, he loves messing with his cat, playing sports, and gorging himself with food.
Omer Dokan
About Omer
Omer is a first-year Biology student at the University of Texas at Austin. His research interests neurocognitave disorders, memory, and genetics. After graduation, he hopes to pursue an MD/PhD program to become a neurologist. In his free time, Omer likes to make new memories with friends, write, and try new things.
Cassidy Cole
About Cassidy
Cassidy is a first-year student studying Behavioral & Social Data Science at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research interests include the cognitive-neurological components behind fear and fear learning/association. After graduation, she aspires to pursue a doctoral degree and to become a professor in cognitive neuroscience or a related field. In her free time, she likes to doodle, play video games, and do the daily Metazooa.
Aryan Chirayath
About Aryan
Aryan is a first-year Biology major at the University of Texas at Austin. His research interests involve the relationship between genetics and the environment in regards to human behavior. After graduation, he hopes to attend medical school to become a physician. In his free time, Aryan loves making music and spending time with family and friends.
Fiona Wang
About Fiona
Fiona is a first-year student at the University of Texas at Austin studying neuroscience. Her research interests include trauma, cognition, memory, learning, and neurodevelopment disorders. She hopes to connect her ongoing passion for piano and music with future memory and learning research endeavors. Post-grad, she plans on attending medical school and eventually working in the ER or ICU. In her free time, she loves reading, trying new matcha spots, and hiking.
Ankita Chitturi
About Ankita
Ankita is an undergraduate student at UT Austin pursuing a BS in Statistics and Data Science. Her research interests include the intricacies of memory cognition as well as the intersection of memory and neuroscience disciplines. In her free time, she likes to explore the city, watch movies, and spend time with friends!
Hailey Anson
About Hailey
Hailey is an undergraduate student at UT Austin pursuing a BSA in Neuroscience and a minor in Philosophy of the Mind and Language. She is very interested in behavior and the way humans and animals alike act in response to their environment. In her free time, Hailey loves reading, hanging out with friends and family, and being outside as much as possible!
Samay Rao
About Samay
Samay is an undergraduate at UT Austin studying Health Promotion and Behavioral Science. He’s interested in how the brain distinguishes safety from threat and how fear inhibition contributes to emotional learning and mental health. Outside the lab, his interests include film, sports, working out and exploring Austin.
Lab Alumni
Prashanth Sai
About Prashanth
Prashanth is a graduate student at UT Austin pursuing an MS in Information Systems with a focus on Human-Computer Interaction. Passionate about the intersection of design and technology, he delves into extended reality (XR), user experience design, and cognitive psychology to create solutions that are both innovative and user-centered. With a knack for engineering and research, Prashanth combines creativity and functionality to tackle challenges head-on. In his free time, he’s either lost in a book, doodling ideas that may or may not make sense, binge-watching movies like it’s a full-time job.
Neha Deosthali
About Neha
Neha is an undergraduate student at UT Austin pursuing a BS in Neuroscience as a part of the Dean’s Scholars Honors Program. Her research interests include studying memory loss and the impact emotion has on memory. In her free time, Neha loves dancing, working out, and cooking.
Rujula Sharma
About Rujula
Rujula is pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Psychology as well as a Pre-Health Professions Certificate at UT Austin. After graduation, she plans on pursuing Medical School. Outside of research, she has her Bachelor’s in Indian Classical Dance and she loves to work out in her free time!
Lilianna Terrazas
About Lily
Lily is an undergraduate student at UT Austin double majoring in psychology and sociology. Her research interests include how emotions shape memories and how those memories affect trauma and anxiety disorders. In her free time, Lily enjoys running, reading, listening to music, and sleeping.
Nicholas Karasik
About Nick
Nicholas is an undergraduate student at UT Austin pursuing a dual degree in neuroscience and philosophy with a minor in economics. His research interests include understanding how cognitive systems are negatively impacted in those with affective disorders and developing novel behavioral treatments to mitigate these effects. He is also interested in learning how meditation and mindfulness practices can be used to better regulate mood and anxiety in bipolar disorders. In his free time, Nicholas enjoys tutoring students in STEM fields, listening to podcasts, strength training, and reading philosophy.
Isaias de La Rosa
About Isaias
Isaias is an undergraduate student at UT Austin pursuing a dual-major in Psychology and Social Work. He is interested in society’s impact on anxiety and depression within those in marginalized groups. He enjoys familiarizing himself with cultural foods, mainstream media, and indie films, art, and music.
Juliette Peralta
About Juliette
Juliette is an undergraduate student at UT Austin pursuing a Bachelors of Arts in Psychology, minoring in Sociology. She is particularly interested in utilizing ecological-momentary assessment data to develop exposure-based therapies for the treatment of mental health disorders, such as anxiety disorders and eating disorders. Additionally, she is also interested in reward-processing and cognitive biases in attention and memory that occur in those experiencing eating disorder pathology. When she is not in the lab, Juliette spends her free time playing the Sims 4, reading, and trying new foods around Austin!
Sydney Lambert
About Sydney
Sydney received her B.A. in Psychology with a minor in French Studies from the University of Texas at Austin in Fall 2022. Before graduate school, she worked in direct care at Helping Hand Home for Children, supporting traumatized youth—an experience that sparked her interest in the lasting effects of trauma on memory and behavior. Sydney will be joining the Ph.D. program in Psychology at McGill University in Fall 2025. Her research focuses on how emotional memories evolve over time to shape meaning, particularly how they influence decision-making processes across different stages. In the lab, Sydney coordinates both behavioral and MRI studies, with responsibilities ranging from study design and data collection to training new lab members. She is passionate about creating collaborative and inclusive research environments. Outside of the lab, Sydney enjoys writing poetry (in both French and English), drawing, cooking, rock climbing, and spending time with her orange tabby, Wilbur.
About Elizabeth
Elizabeth completed her PhD in Psychology at Texas A&M University under the mentorship of Dr. Annmarie MacNamara. Her doctoral research used EEG/ERPs and fMRI to examine cognitive and affective processes underlying anxiety and depression. Elizabeth is interested in leveraging computational neuroscience and neuroimaging to better understand how emotional learning and memory is implicated in PTSD and anxiety, with the aim of contributing to better brain-based characterizations of these disorders. In her spare time, Elizabeth enjoys spending time with her dog, fiber arts and paper crafts, and reading.
Ayesha Nadiadwala
About Ayesha
Ayesha is originally from Pakistan, later settled in California. She received BS in Cognitive Sciences (concentration in Cognitive Neurosciences) along with honors and an Order of Merit from University of California, Irvine, in 2016. Post graduation, she worked as a Clinical Research Coordinator at Stanford University before joining UT Austin’s Neuroscience PhD program. Ayesha is interested in researching how memory processes are influenced by emotion, specifically how memory of when events happened across time is affected by emotional factors. She’ll pursue such questions by leveraging behavioral and neuroimaging techniques under the co-mentorship of Joseph Dunsmoor and Alison Preston. She hopes that some of her research will have clinical implications, especially for PTSD and depression. Ayesha loves animals (especially her two cats!), driving (not in traffic), and trying new adventures. Ayesha received her PhD in Neuroscience Spring of 2024.
Cheyenne Ahamed
About Cheyenne
Cheyenne received her BS in biomedical engineering with a Pre-Health Professions certificate in May of 2023. As an undergraduate she was involved in sono-optogenetic research with applications to Parkinson’s disease in the Wang Lab and has also worked with Dr. Brode on his Post-COVID-19 Program through the Dell Med HLA program. She is interested in researching the behavioral and long-term effects of fear. In her free time, Cheyenne enjoys reading, attempting new recipes, and playing soccer. Cheyenne is now attending UT Dell Medical School for her MD.
Ameera Azar
About Ameera
Ameera graduated in May of 2021 from UT Austin with a BSA in Neuroscience with a certificate in Pre-Health Professions. She worked as a Research Assistant in the Preston Lab for two years during her undergraduate studies and plans to earn a PhD in Clinical Psychology. She’s interested in how trauma affects memory in neuropsychiatric clinical populations.
Sophia Bibb
About Sophia
Sophia received her BSA in Neuroscience honors with a certificate in Evidence and Inquiry: The Biological Basis of Sensitivity from UT Austin in May of 2021. She worked as an undergraduate research assistant in the lab since the Summer of 2019 and served as the lab manager/research associate until Spring 2023. Sophia is currently pursuing her PhD at Ohio State University under the mentorship of Stephanie Gorka & Zeynep Saygin. Sophia’s research interests involve the role that temperamental sensitivity plays in how individuals acquire and process trauma, especially PTSD and complex PTSD. In her free time, she dances, does theatre, lifts weights, and cuddles her dog Jersey.
Nicole Keller
About Nicole
Nicole Keller, a Costa Rican native, received her Bachelor of Science in Neuroscience and a Business Foundations Certificate at the University of Texas at Austin. She recently received her PhD in Neuroscience from the Institute of Neuroscience. Nicole’s research interests include, but are not limited to, the opposing roles of reward and fear in human learning and memory–particularly, the effect of reward on fear extinction. Through the use of psychophysiology and neuroimaging methods, she is investigating how the presence of a reward during fear extinction can enhance the function and efficacy of a safe memory, and further prevent relapse of fearful behaviors. Outside of the science, she thoroughly enjoys being in the presence of her cat, Ivy, buying plants, and learning French.
About Carola
Carola received her Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology, Linguistics, and Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Milano-Bicocca where she began studying the neural mechanisms underlying creativity. Carola worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University and the Shirley Ryan Ability Lab in Chicago, where she narrowed her interest to studying idea generation, specifically insight problem-solving (the “Aha!” moment). Carola’s work aims to understand the following: the role played by reward (and the dopamine system) in creativity and insight problem-solving; the involvement of the vision system in idea generation; and the role of the right anterior temporal area when people have creative insights. Carola contributed to pioneering the “accuracy effect” associated with “Aha!” moments, demonstrating that the feeling of certainty that accompanies creative ideas is warranted by high accuracy. Her work counts the first Italian versions of the Compound Remote Associates problems and the Rebus Puzzles, enabling researchers to investigate the insight problem among Italian speakers. She has experience working with TBI, Parkinson’s and neglect patients, and has mastered several techniques of research such as eye-tracking, imaging, and brain stimulation.
Gus Hennings
About Gus
Gus Hennings graduated from UT Austin with his Ph.D. in neuroscience in 2022. His dissertation was titled “Contextual processes in Pavlovian conditioning and extinction: insights from episodic memory.” He is currently a post-doctoral research fellow working with Dr. Ken Norman at Princeton University, where he is using real-time fMRI neurofeedback to develop interventions for PTSD. Previously, he graduated with honors with a B.S. in Neuroscience from The College of William and Mary in 2016.
For more Gus, see: achennings.github.io
Mason McClay
About Mason
Mason McClay received his BS from Centre College in Behavioral Neuroscience and a BA in Classical Studies in 2017. Mason’s research interests involve emotion regulation and the flexibility of self-identity and their implications on memory. Mason is currently pursuing a PhD at UCLA under the mentorship of Dr. Dave Clewett and having all his Zoom meetings on poor internet connections in state parks!
Emily Leiker
About Emily
Emily earned her Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Missouri in 2017, where she investigated how memory content and quality are instantiated in the brain during the act of remembering, using EEG, fMRI, and advanced pattern classification methods. After completing her degree, Emily worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow for the Center for Neurobehavioral Research at Boys Town National Research Hospital, where she contributed to a large-scale longitudinal neuroimaging study of emotion cognition interactions in youth with diverse behavioral and emotional problems and psychopathology. Emily is currently a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Pittsburgh!
Jarid Goodman
About Jarid
Jarid Goodman held a post-doctoral research associate in the laboratory of Joseph Dunsmoor at the University of Texas at Austin from 2017-2018. Jarid received his PhD in Neuroscience at Texas A&M University in 2016 and has previously served as a postdoctoral research scientist in the laboratory of Christa McIntyre at the University of Texas in Dallas. His research interests include the neurobiology of multiple memory systems and emotional modulation of memory. He is now assistant professor of Psychology at Delaware State University!
Carly Hatchell
About Carly
Carly Hatchell received her Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering and a Business Foundation Certificate from the University of Texas at Austin in 2018. Carly’s research interests include PTSD and the role of early emotional or traumatic experiences in learning and development. She grew up in the Netherlands, and she is passionate about mental health, meditation, science, and her cat, Mr. FitzLokerton McMeowMeow.