HELENA RUTHERFORD, PH.D

Lab Director

I am interested in the perinatal origins of parenting and the neurobiological and psychological changes that occur during the transition to parenthood.

AMANDA LOWELL, PH.D 

Postdoctoral Fellow

I study the impact of addiction and adversity on maternal neural and behavioral responses to infant cues, the implementation of evidence-based parenting intervention for mothers with addictions, and the neurophysiological mechanisms underscoring mothers’ response to treatment.

TAL YATZIV, PH.D

Postdoctoral Associate

​I am interested in the interplay between cognitive and affective processes in shaping early parenting and infants’ socioemotional development, with special focus on parental mentalizing and sensitive responsiveness. I employ reaction-time and accuracy-based cognitive measures, imaging approaches, and observation-based ecological methods (e.g., videotaped parent-infant interactions), to gain insights into how adaptive parenting unfolds in time, and how psychopathology may modulate this transition.

LI YAN MCCURDY, PH.D

Postdoctoral Fellow

My research interests include identifying how maternal behavior might differ in mothers who engage in excessive alcohol and/or drug use, and uncovering the neural correlates of these differences.

FRANCESCA PENNER, PH.D

Postdoctoral Fellow

I am interested in parenting and child socio-emotional development and mental health. I am especially interested in understanding the influences of attachment, parental emotion regulation and mentalizing, and parent psychopathology at multiple levels of analysis, in order to improve parent interventions and reduce the intergenerational transmission of psychopathology.

KIMBERLY STREATER

Research Coordinator

I work on recruiting, engaging, and screening pregnant and postpartum mothers in the New Haven community.

LUCY GAO, B.S

Medical Student Research Associate

I am interested in investigating the effects of various prenatal predictors, such as maternal-fetal attachment and prior parental relationships, on postpartum maternal-infant interactions using questionnaire measures and EEG.  Most recently, I am working on a project that examines the effects of infant cries on maternal heart rate in pregnancy.

SARAH PEOPLES, B.A, MSc.

Postgraduate Research Associate

I am interested in the neural and behavioral differences between mothers and non-mothers in processing and responding to infant affective cues. I am also interested in associated psychophysiological differences that may further delineate the effect of motherhood on neurobiological functioning. 

HANA HAITSUKA, B.S

Postgraduate Research Associate

I am working on a longitudinal study looking at the transition to motherhood during pregnancy and postpartum, and its associations to parenting and addiction using fMRI. 

ELOISE SUTTON, B.S

Masters Student

I am interested in the effect of maternal anxiety on psychological and behavioral aspects of parenting. Currently, I am studying the relationship between prenatal maternal mind-mindedness and anxiety.

DANA KIM

Undergraduate Student

I am an undergraduate student in my sophomore year studying Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology and Psychology on the neuroscience track. I am interested in the neurobiological changes that occur as a result of early childhood experiences and how these changes may affect adult behavior, including parenting.