Maria Chang
Maria Chang received her BA in Cognitive Science from the University of California Berkeley. Before joining the Gaab lab in August of 2007, she studied event-related potentials in alcohol dependent individuals. Maria is currently working on projects aimed at understanding the relationship between musical training and reading abilities using behavioral assessments. She is also interested in using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate auditory processing and reading development in children.
Monica Lee Vakil
Monica Vakil received her M.A. in The Psychology of Music from The University of Sheffield, UK with a focus on dual fMRI, examining vocal performance at the level of duet performance synchrony in singers. She received her B.A in Psychology, Music Psychology (performance anxiety & emotions) and Voice from New York University, Gallatin School of Individualized Study.
Monica's research training includes: cognitive restructuring, behavioral rehearsal and relaxation techniques to alleviate performance anxiety, auditory and movement interaction in infants and adults and biofeedback methods for teaching music articulation to children. Monica's research interests include psychology of performance, such as performance anxiety and emotion regulation in singers as explored by neuroimaging and cognitive/behavioral techniques. Monica joined the Gaab Lab in September of 2007.
Research Affiliates
Joanna Christodoulou, M.A., Ed.M. [picture coming soon]
Consulting Graduate Student
Joanna Christodoulou explores reading and reading disabilities from a mind, brain, and education framework. She is a doctoral student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and conducts neuroimaging research in John Gabrieli's lab at MIT.
Visiting Scholars
Nora Raschle
Nora Raschle received her MA in Neuropsychology from the University of Zurich (Switzerland). During her diploma work she was a research trainee at the Music and Neuroimaging Lab of Prof. Schlaug at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School in Boston. Her research included the investigation of the influence of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on the auditory system. During her Master's Program at the University of Zurich she gained experience working with clinical and psychiatric populations. Nora joined the Gaab Lab at the beginning of 2008 as a visiting pre-doctoral student from the University of Zurich. She is very excited to start her PhD work in the field of dyslexia, where her research will focus on neural and behavioral correlates of typical reading as well as children with developmental dyslexia.
Summer Interns
Krystle North
Krystle North is an Senior undergraduate student at Emmanuel College in Boston, MA studying Neuropsychology and music. She has been involved in music through instrumental performance, especially flute, for over 12 years. She is particularly interested in the neuropsychology of music as well as the emotions involved in music and literature. Krystle joined the Gaab Lab in May 2008.
Merima Ruhotina
Merima Ruhotina is a junior undergraduate student at Cornell University. She is majoring in Human Development with a concentration on Human Biology. She plans on attending medical school after graduation with the hopes of becoming a pediatrician. Merima joined the Gaab Lab in May 2008.
Roman Buechler
Roman Buechler has joined the gaab lab for a three-month internship in summer 2008. He is on the Master's Program in Neuropsychology at University of Zurich in Switzerland. There he has gained research experience in the field of cognitive neuroscience. At the department of Neuropsychology he is doing diagnostic investigations and traffic psychology assessments. Furthermore he is working as a secondary school class teacher in Switzerland.
Jennifer Zuk
Jennifer Zuk is a senior undergraduate student at Case Western Reserve University. She is a double major in Music Education and Cognitive Science, with a minor in Biology. She studies performance in flute and voice while pursuing an interest in the neuroscience of music. Jennifer hopes to bridge her interests in education, cognitive neuroscience, learning disabilities, and music in future research pursuits. She joined the Gaab Lab in June 2008.
Will Jaffee
After earning a B.A. at Oberlin in philosophy, Will taught Biology of the Brain and Bioethics courses at The Gunnery for two years, a boarding school in the hills of Litchfield County, Connecticut. Over the summers he lead backpacking/whitewater canoeing trips in Virginia, but has now moved back up to Boston (his place of origin) to join the Gaab lab and begin his journey to med school, with the ultimate hope of becoming a neurologist.
Students
If you're potentially interested in joining the Gaablab as a graduate student, research assistant or intern, please contact Nadine Gaab
Alumni
Franziska Dahinden
Franziska Dahinden joined the lab for a three-month internship in fall 2007 while she was on her Master's Program in Neuropsychology at University of Zurich in Switzerland.
She has had earlier research experience at the Institute for Empirical Research in Economics of the faculty of Economics, the department of Neuropsychology and the department of clinical psychology at University of Zurich
Working experiences include assistance at the school psychological department in Frauenfeld/Kreuzlingen (Switzerland) and her job in a clinical sleep research lab in Zurich.
Priya Kalra
Priya Kalra completed a BA in Cognitive Science (Neuroscience emphasis) at the University of California, Berkeley and an M.Sc. in Functional Neuroimaging at Brunel University (London, UK). She successfully completed her field-experience program at the Gaab lab while enrolled in the "Mind, Brain, and Education" program at Harvard Graduate School of Education.
As an undergraduate, she worked in the D'Esposito Neuroimaging Lab at Berkeley, and after graduating worked with the "language group" at the Memory and Aging Center at UCSF.
Her research interests include testing cognitive models of language and reading with neuroimaging tools and the role of automaticity in normal reading and dyslexia.
Lauren Gibson Lauren Gibson received her B.S. in Psychology and Spanish from Ursinus College in Pennsylvania. During her senior year, she was a research assistant for the Pennsylvania Sex Offenders Assessment Board where she evaluated sex offender recidivism factors and the relationship between their actuarial scores and Sexually Violent Predator Labels. She successfully completed her field-experience program at the Gaab lab while earning her master's in Human Development and Psychology from Harvard University.
Ghadah Madi
Ghadah Madi is currently a Graduate student in the Radiological Sciences and Protection program at University of Massachusetts Lowell. She received a Bachelors degree of Science in 2003 in the same Major from King Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
After her one year internship in Radiology in different modalities (CT, MRI , Angiography, Fluoroscopy, Nuclear Medicine and Ultrasound) she worked in an Ultrasound department in a children's hospital where she performed scans for Pediatrics as well as neonate patients. Ghadah worked in the High Risk Obstetrics' Ultrasound and Gynaecology department as a Senior Ultrasonographer for 2 years before she received a scholarship to pursue her graduate studies.
Continuous Education and Training: Ultrasound center at Krankenhaus Nordwest, Frankfurt, Germany 2005. Vienna international school of 3D ultrasound. GE and Kretz (Austria) on job training 3D/4D Ultrasound. Several courses in Anatomy, Physiology and Physics awarded 108 CME credit hours by The Saudi Council of Health Specialties.
Anja Marwitz
Anja Marwitz is a graduate student in Psychology at the University of Bremen, with majors in Neuropsychology and Clinical Psychology. She joined the lab for a three-month internship starting in February 2008.
She has earlier research experience at the Department of Neuropsychology and Behavioral Neurobiology at the University of Bremen. She also works as an interviewer for young mothers with children at the age of 0-2 yrs for the project ProKind (ProChild) Bremen, conducting accompanying research and behavioral testing.
Anja will stay at our lab until the beginning of May and is looking forward to gain experience working with children in fMRI as well as learning about reading development in children.
Katie Klich
Katie Klich is an undergraduate student at Boston University studying music performance. While primarily a musician, she has some background in neuroscience and psychology and is particularly interested in the neuroscience of autism.
Katie joined the Gaab Lab in September 2007.
