Meet the LEEDers
Meet the talented individuals who form the backbone of our team at LEED. Each member brings a unique set of skills, experiences, and passion to the table, contributing to our collective success. Together, we foster a dynamic and collaborative environment where innovation thrives. Explore the profiles below to get acquainted with the faces driving excellence and shaping the future at LEED.
Johanna Bick
Dr. Johanna Bick is an Associate Professor in the Psychology Department at the University of Houston.
Livia Merrill
Livia’s main research interests explore how adversity affects various aspects of childhood development and the relationships among different factors that contribute to resiliency. For her dissertation, she is currently examining the effects of prenatal stress exposure from Hurricane Harvey on the preschool brain and behavior.
Xinge Li
Xinge’s primary research focus revolves around examining the influence of familial environmental factors, such as family stress, maternal psychological distress, and parenting style, on child psychopathology through the lens of developmental neuroscience.
Kelly Barry
Kelly’s research focuses on understanding how experiences of stress impact brain development during sensitive developmental periods. She is particularly interested in identifying neuroendocrine and cognitive processes that confer risk for psychopathology.
Haley Laughlin
Haley’s research interests include investigating the sources of individual variability of outcomes in children who experience stress and adversity.
Marguerite Knudtson
Marguerite’s research interests include examining the effects of early life adversity on children’s emotion regulation and behavioral outcomes through effects on neurodevelopment, and identifying family environment factors that contribute to resiliency.
Andrea Ortiz
Andrea is a post-bacc in the lab with a B.S. in Psychology from the University of Houston in 2021. She is interested in researching the biological predictors of psychopathology in children following traumatic events.
Anna Galvan
Anna is a research assistant in the lab with a B.S in Psychology and a minor in Biology. She graduated from University of Houston in December 2021. She joined the team in February 2022 and is interested in understanding child’s brain development and how their environments may influence development.
Ashlie Mai
Ashlie is a summer undergraduate research assistant in our lab. She is currently assisting in EEG data collection and coding previously collected data , supervised by Andrea & Anna.
Samantha Taraby
Samantha is an undergraduate research assistant in our lab. She is currently assisting in data collection. Her research interests include understanding how adversity at a young age may influence cognitive development in addition to how children exposed to trauma differ from others in terms of physiological responses to stress.
Ifrah Ahmad
Ifrah is a undergraduate research assistant in our lab. She is currently assisting in EEG data collection.
Zisan Orak
Zisan’s research interests include examining the bond between sleep and memory consolidation in adolescence through the usage of actigraphy technology, and analyzing social paradigms in collectivist societies via social identity theory to learn how to destigmatize mental health illness in these populations.
Tyler Banks
Jonas Amaya
Leslie Gonzalez
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Jana Saidy
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Ramaisa Saleem
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LEED Alumni
Graduate Students
Rebecca Lipschutz
Brian Biekman
Shutian Shen
Parsa Taheri
Research Assistants
Meghan Chan
Mikayla Gilliam
Deja Hatcher
Juan Pablo Guardia
Mariana Ramos-Celedon
Maya Flores
Holden Frick
Ashley Acuna
Laura Delgado
Miranda Dominguez
Marie Douge
Natalie Hosseini
April Aragon
Maya Ibrahim
Maiah Jackson
Kate Koontz
Hana Mohamad
Nesreen Mattar
Leslie Perez
Ainash Montgomery
Oluwashina Ojo
Emmanuel Oketunmbi
Camila Quintero
Catherine Ramos
Aila Khan