About Me

Explore and Engage.

Growing up in dynamic Southern California, exploring and diving into new experiences is in my bones. I brought this open can-do attitude with me when I transferred to California State University, Monterey Bay (CSUMB). At CSUMB I was able to find and soak up every available opportunity for my development as a scholar and scientist. In December 2020, I graduated CSUMB with distinction in the major of Psychology as well as a minor in Statistics.

Excited to go all-in on clinical research I connected with Dr. Christine Valdez, who leads the Trauma Outcomes and Recovery (TOAR) lab at CSUMB, while still attending community college in spring 2018. Obtaining a research assistant position in the TOAR lab early allowed me to get involved with research over summer 2018, prior to enrolling in my first class in Monterey. With this early experience and the mentorship of Dr. Valdez, I was able to secure research funding for all 5 of my semesters at CSUMB through the McNair Scholars program as well as the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Center Researchers program. As a McNair Scholar, I have contributed to a number of research projects and collaborations across several universities. My work in the TOAR lab has focused on the development of a community intervention for former gang members, the relationship between trauma-related cognitions and treatment trajectories in trauma-focused therapy, and the use of virtual reality for developing social empathy. I am also currently involved in a TOAR lab collaboration with the University of California, San Francisco investigating the influence of self-attitudes in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and hoarding disorder.

In summer 2019, I further explored trauma treatment research and virtual reality at the Emory Healthcare Veterans Program with Dr. Andrew Sherrill. During my summer at Emory, I reviewed promising new treatments for PTSD while contributing to a chapter in the second edition of the Oxford Handbook of Traumatic Stress Disorders, created an open-access digital library of 360° video exposure stimuli, and studied exposure therapy principles in weekly meetings with expert clinicians. Since summer 2019, I have continued to collaborate with Dr. Sherrill on projects that intersect treatment and technology. We currently have a paper on 360° videos in exposure therapy under review, a paper on attentional control and psychological flexibility in posttraumatic stress in preparation, and a third project on telehealth getting ready for IRB review.

While at CSUMB I was also heavily influenced by my minor in Statistics and have developed a love for statistical modeling and research design. I am currently learning Bayesian statistical modeling through Richard McElreath’s “Statistical Rethinking” textbook and course lectures in my free time. Since graduating I have continued to be heavily involved in research with my supervisors at both CSUMB and Emory, leading data analysis and manuscript writing on several projects. 

Ultimately, I aim to work in translational treatment development research for fear, anxiety, and stress-related suffering. I am interested in identifying important processes of change that can be influenced to improve therapeutic outcomes. In this area, I have come to focus on avoidance and acceptance. Avoiding uncomfortable experiences is rewarding in the short term, but over time can develop into rigid and unhealthy behavior patterns that can lead us to miss out on important aspects of life. Moreover, the short-term reward of avoidance often leads to the reification of our fears or discomfort, which in turn results in more avoidance and more missing out on life. On the other hand, acceptance can create space and willingness to encounter fear and discomfort. To this end, I have a special interest in processes and procedures that can intervene in this avoidance-rigidity feedback loop and increase psychological acceptance such that people can engage with their lives in a personally meaningful way. I am particularly enthusiastic about the optimization and augmentation of exposure therapies. For example, using virtual reality to maximize inhibitory learning, investigating how framing exposure impacts outcomes (e.g. goal of symptom reduction vs increased willingness/acceptance), and exploring mobile apps/websites for post-treatment outcome maintenance or even self-guided interventions. I would be excited to train in any area relevant to intervention development for fear, anxiety, and stress-related pathology, especially if it incorporates exposure, technology, and/or mindfulness and acceptance perspectives. Areas of high interest include PTSD, anxiety disorders, OCD, stress and anxiety in serious chronic illness, fear/inhibitory learning, and treatment development and evaluation.

Outside of my formal scholarly work, my passion for learning and sharing what excites me has led me to develop broad interests, as well as a number of mentoring and leadership positions. I am constantly reading or listening to podcasts and enjoy discussing topics across many areas, from philosophy to skateboarding. Check out the resources and interesting stuff pages, let’s talk!

Some interesting things you might not know about me otherwise:

I have been an athlete and coach in the sport of wrestling for over a decade. Wrestling is an incredibly deep sport, a chess match played on the human body which requires thinking many moves ahead. I most enjoy teaching about the analytical decision-making process in wrestling and have in the past hosted workshops and small seminars on advanced topics in the sport. As a coach, I found my love of teaching and mentorship as a venue to connect with and enrich a community by sharing my passion. I have personally mentored over 150 high school student-athletes, several of which were California state finalists. I’m at my best working in a community like wrestling, one full of drive and enthusiasm. I bring this driven and collaborative attitude to my work in research and scholarship. 

I also spent several years as the general manager of a competitive World of Warcraft team. In this position, I led 40 expert players in an endeavor to be the first group in North America to solve intricate cooperative puzzles, ranking as high as 2nd best in North America, and 8th worldwide. Teams entering this competition commit to 60+ hours per week dedicated to solving these puzzles. I managed and directly contributed to teams of software programmers, strategy developers, and data analysts, all focused on solving the puzzles as quickly as possible. Through this experience, I realized that I feel most engaged when I am solving complex problems that require great levels of dedication in collaboration with talented colleagues. I left this organization to return to my education when I realized that these skills could be applied to real-world problems that I care about through science.