People

Abigail Szkutak
6th YeaR Ph.D. CaNDIDATe / Predoctoral Intern

Abigail (Abby) Szkutak is a sixth-year Ph.D. candidate in Clinical Psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University and is currently completing her Predoctoral Internship at the Warren Alpert Medical School/Brown University Consortium (Adult Track). She received her B.A. in Psychology from College of the Holy Cross, worked as a research coordinator at the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for OCD and Related Disorders, and earned her M.S. and M.Phil. from Teachers College. Abby’s research focuses on understanding how and for whom psychological treatments work, particularly among adults with emotion dysregulation. She is especially interested in integrating physiological and neural measures (e.g., heart rate variability, EEG/ERPs), therapist and patient process data, and advanced longitudinal modeling approaches to examine mechanisms of change in psychotherapy and individual predictors of treatment response. Her dissertation research, funded by a Training Fellowship from the Society for Psychophysiological Research and a Doctoral Dissertation Grant from Teachers College, investigated targeted mechanisms in the transdiagnostic treatment of perseverative negative thinking using event-related potentials.

moises hernandez
5th YeaR Ph.D. Student

Moises Hernandez is a fifth-year Ph.D. student in the Clinical Psychology program at Teachers College, Columbia University. After graduating from St. John's University with a B.A. in Psychology, Moises joined the New York City Department of Health & Mental Hygiene, where he led the adaptation of HIV prevention programs for Latinx New Yorkers. While in the M.A. in Psychology in Education program at TC, Moises worked as a research assistant at Hunter College's Emotion Regulation Lab, where he helped investigate the biobehavioral mechanisms underlying distress and fear-based anxiety disorders. He is interested in identifying and targeting biobehavioral mechanisms of anxiety disorders, with a particular interest in targeting these mechanisms among marginalized populations like the Latinx and LGBTQ+ communities.

ELLIE BRISKIN
2ND YeaR Ph.D. Student

Ellie Briskin is a second-year Ph.D. student in the Clinical Psychology program at Teachers College, Columbia University. After graduating from Dartmouth College with a B.A. in Psychology, Ellie spent two years working at the Center for Health Outcomes and Interdisciplinary Research at Massachusetts General Hospital. In this role, Ellie coordinated mindfulness-based interventions for individuals coping with health challenges and comorbid psychological distress. Ellie later worked as a research coordinator in the Solomonov Lab at Weill Cornell Medicine, where she supported research aimed at developing scalable, neuroscience-informed psychotherapies for depression. Ellie is interested in investigating the transdiagnostic factors that maintain emotional distress, with a focus on how emotional and behavioral dysregulation impacts quality of life. She hopes her research can inform more effective treatments for anxiety and mood disorders across diverse populations, and is passionate about making evidence-based psychosocial resources more widely accessible.

AUDREY WONG is a second-year master's student in Clinical Psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University. She graduated from The Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2025 with a B.Soc.Sc. in Psychology and a minor in Economics. Her research interests focus on the dynamic mechanisms of interpersonal emotion regulation and how it shapes communication within dyadic relationships. She is also interested in exploring these processes through the clinical lens of mood disorders, with the ultimate goal of improving therapeutic outcomes and informing more targeted, evidence-based interventions for individuals experiencing emotional dysregulation. Alongside her work in the READ Lab, Audrey is a research assistant for a clinical trial examining the integration of psilocybin with CBT for individuals experiencing depression at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. She is also a National Board-Certified Health & Wellness Coach at Columbia Health.

BREE MAKARUS is a second-year master’s student in Clinical Psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University. She graduated from Pennsylvania State University in 2025 with a B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Kinesiology. As an equestrian athlete, her research interests center on neuropsychology, sport-related concussion, and the neurobiological mechanisms underlying emotional and cognitive outcomes following brain injury. Broadly, she is interested in understanding how neurological and environmental stressors contribute to anxiety, depression, and long-term cognitive outcomes in athletes and other high-risk populations. Ultimately, Bree hopes to pursue a career as a clinical neuropsychologist focused on cognitive rehabilitation and the development of evidence-based approaches to improving recovery and long-term functioning following brain injury.

STUTI KARNA is a second-year Master's student in the Clinical Psychology program at Teachers College, Columbia University. After graduating from Delhi University with a B.A. (Hons) in Psychology, she worked in a clinical neuroscience lab at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi, India investigating cognitive and biobehavioral markers across the diagnostic spectrum using qEEG/ERP, Eye-tracking and fNIRS. She also works as a research assistant on the suicide prevention training program at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. Her research interests center on developing personalized treatment for anxiety and mood disorders across diverse populations. Ultimately, Stuti is passionate about treatment research and wants to translate mechanistic research into more targeted, person-centered treatments, and plans to pursue a PhD in Clinical Psychology to advance this work.

MARGHERITA PALLANTI is a second-year M.A. student in Clinical Psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University. She graduated from Florida State University with a B.S. in Psychology and a minor in Sociology. At FSU, she worked as a research assistant in the Motivated Social Cognition Lab and the Anxiety and Behavioral Health Clinic, where she contributed to research on emotion regulation, anxiety sensitivity, spontaneous impressions, and interpersonal processes underlying psychological functioning. Her research interests center on regulatory flexibility and emotion regulation as transdiagnostic mechanisms of psychopathology. She is particularly interested in how emotional clarity, social context, and cognitive-affective processes contribute to resilience and adaptive functioning following adversity, using longitudinal, psychophysiological, and ecological momentary assessment (EMA) methods. Ultimately, Margherita plans to pursue a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology.

PATRICK DIAO is a second-year M.A. student in Clinical Psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University, and holds a dual B.A. degree in Psychology and History from the University of Southern California. His research uses measures of personality functioning and personality trait profiles for routine treatment outcome monitoring and DSM-5 AMPD diagnosis. More broadly, Patrick seeks to integrate emotion regulation theories with attachment-based, interpersonally-oriented models of personality pathology to target transtheoretical mechanisms of change in psychotherapies. He plans to pursue a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology, with the aim of advancing clinically meaningful, process-oriented research at the intersection of developmental science, personality theory, affective science, and psychotherapy research.

SOPHIA SMITH is a second-year master’s student in Clinical Psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University. She graduated with Honors from Wake Forest University with a B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Health and Human Services. Her research interests broadly center on mindfulness and emotion regulation, particularly the dynamic interplay between mind and body. She is especially interested in how mindfulness-based interventions, autonomic nervous system activity, and emotional clarity influence cognitive control, agency, and meaningful action. Alongside her work in the READ Lab, Sophia serves as a lab manager in the Resilience Center for Veterans and Families at Teachers College, facilitating needs-based assessments for transitioning service members and veterans while analyzing suicide risk predictors.

BRANCH ARCHER is a second-year M.A. student in Clinical Psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University. He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a B.A. in Plan II Honors and a B.S. in Environmental Engineering Honors, with minors in Philosophy and Chinese. Afterwards, he completed an M.A. in Philosophy from Simon Fraser University in British Columbia and pursued doctoral work in philosophy at Syracuse University, studying metaethics and meaning in life. These philosophical studies have inspired his studies in clinical psychology, where he is interested in exploring the ways psychotherapy leverages the mechanisms underlying psychological constructs such as meaning in life, resilience, and emotion regulation. He is particularly interested in the ways machine learning techniques might open new research pathways in the study of these constructs. 

NINA PETILLO is a second-year master’s student in Clinical Psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University and holds a B.S. in Neuroscience from Bucknell University. Following graduation, she worked as a clinical research coordinator at the University of Pennsylvania in the Center for Neuroengineering and Therapeutics, where she ran neuroimaging studies for patients with medically intractable epilepsy. Her research interests broadly center on using psychotherapeutic interventions for treating conditions like anxiety and depression. She is also interested in integrating her neuroscience background with her clinical psychology interest to explore the role of neuroimaging in better understanding treatment mechanisms and informing precision-based interventions. Alongside her work in the READ Lab, Nina volunteers as a research assistant in the Anxiety, Stress, and Prolonged Grief Disorders lab at NYU Langone.

POORVA CHAUHAN