People

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Jonathan Rottenberg, Ph.D.

Professor of Psychology

Curriculum Vitae

Email: rottenberg@usf.edu

Personal Website: http://psychology.usf.edu/faculty/jrottenberg/

Charting the Depths Blog: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/charting-the-depths

Office: PCD4109 ; Campus Mail: PCD4118G

Graduate Students

Andrew Devendorf, M.A.

Andrew is a 6th year interested in several areas related to depression. These areas include understanding the cognitive and emotional differences that contribute to recovery and well-being after depression; the stigmatizing effects of public presentations and beliefs about depression; and the lived experiences of mental health providers with a personal connection to mental health diagnoses. Andrew enjoys playing guitar, reading fiction, and writing about psychology in his limited spare time.

Bingjie Tong, B.A.

Bingjie is a 4th year interested in psychological well-being and resilience in the context of psychopathology and suicide prevention. In her spare time, Bingjie enjoys reading, traveling with friends and family, playing music, and petting her cat.

Rose Miller, B.A.

Rose is a 4th year interested in the intersection of mood disorders, non-suicidal self harm, and other behaviors that individuals use to cope with extreme emotions. She spends most of her free time writing, reading, and learning about intersectional feminism, popular culture, and astrology, and making sure her dog knows that he is a very good boy.

Brad Brown, B.A.

Brad is a 3rd year interested in identifying malleable protective factors against suicidality, interpersonal processes in the development and course of suicidality, and exploring factors that promote psychological well-being after psychopathology. In his spare time, he enjoys reading, hiking, and hanging out with his chocolate lab, Hunter.

Ruba Rum, B.A.

Ruba is a 3rd year interested in exploring factors that contribute to the co-occurrence of social anxiety and depression, predictors of psychological well-being in daily life, and mental health stigma. In her free time, Ruba enjoys spending time with her daughter, traveling, and interior decorating.

Cassondra Lyman, B.S.

Cass is a 2nd year interested in the bidirectional relationship between social cognition and psychological disorder. In particular, she is curious about how altered social cognitions impact people's ability to achieve psychological well-being after psychopathology. Cass values an active lifestyle and spends her freetime weightlifting, and training jiu jitsu.

LAB ALUMNI

Van Dang

Van graduated from the University of South Florida in 2016, and she is currently applying to clinical psychology PhD programs. Her research interest is broadly the etiology, maintenance, and treatment of anxiety and mood disorders; She is seeking to understand the biological, affective, and cognitive processes of anxiety and depression.

Emma Frank

Emma is a Psychology major at the University of South Florida. After graduation, she hopes to study sleep disorders in graduate school. Additionally, she has plans to teach either at the high school or college level.

Nakisa Ghannad

Nakisa graduated in May 2018 from the University of South Florida with a B.A. in Psychology and Minor in criminology. Nakisa is in her 2nd year as an RA in the MEL. She is currently applying to Clinical Psy.D programs and hopes to eventually start a private practice focusing on severe mental illness.

Mary Kleinman

Mary received her B.A. in Psychology from the University of South Florida in 2018. Mary plans to obtain her Ph.D. in clinical psychology and pursue a career in academia. Her research interests include beliefs about emotion, deficits in adaptive emotion regulation in depression, and the role of social context in emotion regulation.

Alex Lee

Alex is currently enrolled as a third-year student at the University of South Florida.

Jared McLean

Jared received his B.A. in Psychology at the State University of New York at Albany, in 2016. Currently, he works as a case manager for BayCare Behavioral Health. Jared pans to pursue a PhD in clinical psychology with research interests in emotion context insensitivity in major depressive disorder, emotion expression in multilinguals, and memory of emotion-laden stimuli.

Jessica Mertz

Jessica graduated from the University of South Florida in 2017 with a Bachelor's in Chemistry and minors in Psychology and Public Health. She hopes to become an optometrist and be involved in eye care research.

Mownika Mantripragada

Mownika expects to graduate from the University of South Florida after the Fall 2018 semester with a BA in Psychology. She is currently in the process of applying to medical schools.

Jayla Pugh

Jayla graduated from the University of South Florida in May of 2018. Jayla hopes to pursue a PhD in clinical psychology. She is interested in behavior research with a specialization in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

Marina Kleinschmidt Leal Santos

Marina is currently in her last semester as a student at the University of South Florida. She is majoring in Psychology with a minor in Applied Behavior Analysis. She hopes to pursue graduate work in clinical psychology.

Zubiya Syed

Zubiya is currently enrolled at the University of South Florida as a major in both Psychology and Biomedical Sciences. She expects to graduate in 2020 with a BA and BS.


Ena Begovic, University of South Florida, Ph.D. program in clinical psychology

Natasha Borno, University of South Florida, M.A. program in social work

Bethanne Bower, Harvard University, M.A. program in education

Penny Carlton, University of South Florida, M.A. program in social work

Angie Cibula, Argosy University, Psy.D. program

Kristen Condeelis - University of Alabama, Ph.D. program in clinical psychology

Graig Defeo, University of South Florida, M.A. program in public health

Laurie Dempsey, Arizona State University, Ph.D. program in clinical psychology

Robert Gougelet, University of California, San Diego, Ph.D. program in cognitive science

Aisha Howard, M.A. from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Megan Howard, Research Associate, Harvard University

Brandon Landry, Adler School of Professional Psychology, PsyD in military psychology

Kathy Long, University of South Florida, M.A. program in counseling

Ashley Malchow, Auburn University, Ph.D. program in counseling

Nevena Pehar, University of South Florida, B.A. in Psychology and International Relations

Dana Robertson, Oklahoma State University, M.A. in forensic psychology

Verónica Vázquez, University of South Florida, B.A.

Vanessa Wolvin, Florida Gulf Coast University, M.A. program in criminal justice

Maddison Zilinkas, Portland State University, M.A. program in social work