EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
SIG CHAIR
Kristen K. Ellard, Ph.D.
I am currently a Clinical Fellow and Assistant in Psychology at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, where I conduct research and clinical work jointly through the Bipolar Clinic and Research Program and the Division of Neurotherapeutics. I have called the Neurocognitive Therapies and Translational Research SIG my home at ABCT since 2007, and have been thrilled to see this SIG grow from a handful of fellow NTTR enthusiasts to an inspiring collection of leaders in the field, early career researchers, and up-and-coming next generation students. It is my firm belief that the work of NTTR SIG members will be paramount in developing the CBT of the future and moving the field of psychology forward.
Throughout my own experience in psychology so far, I have dedicated myself to the interdisciplinary integration of behavioral and neural science in the hopes of gaining a better understanding of the nature of psychological disorders, and to translate this knowledge into potential new approaches to intervention. During my doctoral training under the mentorship of David Barlow, I was one of the original developers of the Unified Protocol for Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders. This protocol was directly informed by affective neuroscience and emotion science more broadly, and what these disciplines were starting to inform us about core underlying processes driving psychopathology. My postdoctoral research focused on extending this protocol to patients with bipolar disorder with comorbid anxiety, and to use resting state fMRI to understand neural predictors of treatment response. Out of this research, I have been exploring the neural circuitry underlying severe emotion dysregulation across the spectrum of unipolar and bipolar mood disorders with comorbid anxiety, in order to understand potential barriers to CBT response, and to identify viable targets for novel interventions such as non-invasive neuromodulation. My future research program proposes to use non-invasive neuromodulation adjunctive to CBT as a method to improve CBT treatment response in more severe cases of psychopathology.
MEMBERSHIP/TREASURY CHAIR
Kate Nooner, Ph.D.
Hello NTTR SIG Members! My name is Kate Nooner and I am NTTR SIG treasurer. This is the third time that I have had the privilege of serving as treasure for an organization. So, I am confident in my management the financial assets and membership of our beloved NTTR SIG. I have been part of NTTR since 2013 and have enjoyed participating in the demo fair at our pre-conference meeting each year. In 2016, I organized our demo fair and it was totally awesome! When not helping with our SIG, I am an associate professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina Wilmington where I direct the Trauma and Resilience Lab. My lab focuses on using translational approaches, including EEG and neurofeedback, to improve outcomes for maltreated children, particularly related to the prevention of high risk alcohol and substance use. I have been fortunate to receive NIH-NIAAA funding for my research and to be part of the National Consortium on Alcohol and Neurodevelopment in Adolescence. You can learn more about me at: http://people.uncw.edu/noonerk/drnooner.html. When I’m not playing in the world of academic psychology, you can find me camping with my husband, two sons, and two dogs. I look forward to talking with you at our next NTTR SIG meeting. Please don’t hesitate to contact me with any membership-related questions at noonerk@uncw.edu.
REPRESENTATIVE-AT-LARGE
John Richey, Ph.D.
John Richey is a clinical psychologist and assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Virginia Tech. ABCT has been a professional home to John for more than 15 years. He has also been involved in the NT/TR SIG for more than 4 years, both as a contributor and as chair for various SIG-focused symposia. He has also been actively involved in leadership activities, through the ABCT Public Education and Media Dissemination (PEMD) and Social Networking committees. As such, John has a variety of linkages across multiple levels of leadership that will directly facilitate promotion of the interests and messages of our SIG into the ABCT mainstream, consistent with the role of SIG Representative-at-Large.
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John received his Ph.D. from Florida State University in 2009, after completing a fellowship in anxiety disorders and neuroimaging at Boston University and MIT. From 2009 to 2011, John completed an NRSA institutional (T32) postdoctoral fellowship at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill and Duke University Brain Imaging and Analysis Center (BIAC), where he received training in cognitive neuroscience and human neuroimaging methods. As both a clinical psychologist and cognitive neuroscientist, John uses a wide range of methodological tools including fMRI, neuroeconomics, brain-computer interface (BCI), and low-dimensional computational modeling approaches to fMRI data. John is the author of more than 35 peer reviewed articles and book chapters and has received NIH/NIMH support for his ongoing research in these areas.
SENIOR ADVISOR TO THE CHAIR
Greg Siegle, Ph.D.
Research Summary:
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Affective psychopathologies, including depression and anxiety, are disabling disorders that affect a large portion of the population. Some of the most clinically salient aspects of these disorders involve disruptions in information processing, how people attend to, remember, and interpret information, e.g., the tendency for depressed individuals to ruminate on negative information. Moreover some of the most effective interventions for psychopathology (e.g., cognitive therapy) are based on changing aspects of how individuals process emotional information. Yet, the roles of individual differences in information processing biases and deficits in psychopathology are unclear. My research program is devoted to understanding how individual differences in disruptions of emotional information processing are related to affective psychopathologies, particularly unipolar depression. Ultimately, this research could lead to better understanding of the nature of affective psychopathologies as well as methods for improving the speed and effectiveness of interventions by tailoring them to account for individual differences in information processing styles.
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Three constraints help to make this research rigorous and interpretable. First, the theoretical models I adopt must be physiologically motivated, so as to allow integration of psychological and physiological perspectives. Second, implementing analogs of the models as computational neural networks helps to specify theories in an internally consistent manner, i.e. so theoretical conclusions follow from theoretical assumptions and so variables relevant to a rigorous characterization of a theory have not been left out. Finally, model predictions, generated by computational analogs, must be empirically supported. This constraint leads to empirical advances in understanding psychopathology and the use of valid models in developing novel interventions. This process leads to a research cycle of model specification, hypothesis generation, empirical testing, and model refinement.
To read more about my research please visit: http://www.pitt.edu/~gsiegle/ResearchStatement.html
SIG FOUNDER
Jan Mohlman, Ph.D.
Dr. Mohlman conducts research that seeks to explain how processes of aging (e.g., hearing loss, progressive brain disease, deficits in cognitive skills) impact the presentation and treatment of anxiety in later life. This line of inquiry places particular importance on the executive system (e.g., complex cognitive skills such as reasoning, dividing attention, and metacognition) because these skills decline in later life, and are known to be involved in the management and regulation of emotion, anxiety in particular. Dr. Mohlman’s work also extends to treatment outcome research, applying methodology from affective and cognitive neuroscience to inform studies of 1) cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) and 2) the presentation of anxiety and related clinical problems. Recent research interests also include emotional contrast and technophobia in older adults. Dr. Mohlman along with Drs. Thilo Deckersbach and Adam Weissman, was the editor of the SIG’s recent book entitled, From Symptom to Synapse: A Neurocognitive Perspective on Clinical Psychology published by Routledge.
STUDENT REPRESENTATIVE
Elissa Hamlat, M.A.
SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER
Peter Hitchcock, M.S.
WEBSITE MANAGER
Maria Kryza-Lacombe, M.A.
SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY COMMITTEE:
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Greg Siegle, Ph.D., Senior Advisor to the Chair
Thilo Deckersbach, Ph.D., Past-President
Rudi De Raedt, Ph.D.
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GOVERNANCE ARCHIVES:
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Former SIG Officers
Jan Mohlman, SIG Founder and Former Chair
Thilo Deckersbach, Former Chair, Former Membership/Treasury Chair
Adam Weissman, Former Chair, Former Membership/Treasury Chair
Rebecca Price, Former Chair
Jonathan Stange, Former Student Representative
Andrew Peckham, Former Student Representative, Former Website Manager
Berda Gilmore, Former Newsletter Designer
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