Graduate Students

Ilana Huz, M.A.

Ilana is a Ph.D. candidate in Developmental Psychology with a focus on Children, Families, and Cultures. She also applies this expertise as a Research Scientist at Child Trends in the Reproductive Health and Family Formation program area. Prior to graduate school, she received a Bachelor's degree in Psychology and Education Studies from Brandeis University and supported clinical research trials regarding treatment for mood and anxiety disorders.

Currently, Ilana is working on her Dissertation project focused on trajectories of loneliness from adolescence to emerging adulthood and the individual and contextual factors that predict continuity and discontinuity in these longitudinal patterns.

Judy McDonald

Judy is a third-year Ph.D. student in Catholic University's Clinical Psychology program. Prior to coming to CatholicU, Judy worked as a lab manager and research assistant at the Infancy Studies Lab of Rutgers University - Newark, where she aided in EEG and behavioral studies examining infant brain and language development. She hopes to continue learning about human development—both physiological and social emotional—through her research and clinical experiences. Her current research is focused on the role of physiological regulation on the links between personality and substance use problems in emerging adulthood.

Emma Heffron

Emma is a first-year Ph.D. student in Catholic University's Developmental Psychology program. Prior to attending Catholic University, Emma worked at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore as a research assistant for the Schizophrenia Center. At the Schizophrenia Center she was able to study how childhood experiences (i.e. trauma) may have acted as a risk factor for schizophrenia onset, as well as other longitudinal studies. She hopes to continue to learn about individuals' social emotional health as well as the body and minds response to traumatic familial events, such as divorce or loss of a parent, throughout development.

Emily Fair, M.S.

Emily is a first-year Ph.D. student in the Developmental Psychology program, having earned her MA here in 2018 and an MS in Biobehavioral Health from Penn State University. Her research interests focus on the role of interoception in the development of risk-taking.

Fatima Casiano-Agosto

Javier Oliver, B.S. '23

Javier is a second-year M.A. student in the Psychological Science program at CUA and has been a member of the Positive Development Lab for three years. He earned his B.S. in Psychology and Brain Sciences in 2023 from CUA, where he was also a student-athlete. Javier aspires to become a Clinical Psychologist, with research interests in maladaptive risk behaviors and parent-child interactions during early childhood and adolescents, focusing on how these factors influence individual temperance, anxiety, depression, and delinquency from childhood into early adulthood. He is also dedicated to addressing the misdiagnosis of schizophrenia and PTSD, particularly as it impacts minority communities.

Daniel Saba

Daniel is a first-year M.A. student in Catholic University's Psychological Science program. Prior to graduate school, Daniel earned a bachelor's degree in Philosophy from Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, CA. He began work in business as a Sourcing Analyst at Elevance Health, Inc. and became fascinated with organizational psychology. This led him to transition career tracks and join the Psychological Science program at CUA. Daniel's research interests center on the role of individual differences in temperament — such as emotional sensitivity, resilience, impulsivity, and neuroticism — in contributing to the onset and progress of depression and anxiety in emerging adults.

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