Angelina Polsinelli is a 6th year Clinical Psychology doctoral candidate with a specialization in Neuropsychology at the University of Arizona. She is conducting her dissertation work in the Aging and Cognition laboratory directed by Dr. Elizabeth Glisky with advising and consultation from Drs. Alfred Kaszniak, Matthias Mehl, and Mary-Frances O’Connor. Her research interests encompass a variety of topics in the fields of aging, cognition, mindfulness, and measurement/methods. Broadly, she aims to use behavioral-based measures of everyday functioning to assess factors that contribute to well-being, such as mindfulness, with the goal of using these findings to develop life-style-based interventions for enhancing quality of life in older adults. Projects that she is currently conducting include a validation of the FFMQ in an older adult population, assessment of the cognitive, emotional, and functional associations of trait mindfulness, and the cognitive, emotional, and daily functioning benefits of 6-week mindfulness induction in older adults.
Marcel O. Bonn-Miller is a Research Health Science Specialist at the Center of Excellence in Substance Abuse Treatment and Education, Center for Innovation to Implementation, and National Center for PTSD at VA Palo Alto Health Care System. He is also Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. Dr. Bonn-Miller’s research involves the investigation of factors associated with the development and maintenance of PTSD and substance use disorders, including their co-occurrence, for the purpose of developing, refining, and implementing improved treatments for individuals with these common conditions. Dr. Bonn-Miller serves on the editorial board of 3 substance abuse journals, has 9 active grants, and is a mentor on an additional 2 grants, each of which aim to improve care for veterans with PTSD and/or substance use disorders.
David’s research focuses broadly on understanding what makes people resilient under stress. Specifically, he conducts community intervention studies, laboratory studies of stress and coping, and neuroimaging studies to understand how various stress management strategies alter coping and stress resilience. For example, he is currently working on studies that test how mindfulness meditation training impacts the brain, peripheral stress physiological responses, and stress-related disease outcomes in at-risk community samples. David also explores how the use of simple strategies (self-affirmation, rewarding activities, cognitive reappraisal) can buffer stress and improve problem-solving under pressure.
David has made some recent research forays into other areas, such as in describing the role of unconscious processes in learning and decision making, developing new theory and research on behavioral priming, and in building a new field of health neuroscience.
Dr. Alexandra J. Fiocco is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Ryerson University and is Director of the Stress and Healthy Aging Research Laboratory in Toronto. She obtained a PhD in Neuroscience at McGill University in 2008, followed by four years of postdoctoral training in clinical and epidemiological research at the University of California, San Francisco and at Baycrest in Toronto. Dr. Fiocco has published 26 peer-reviewed articles, 10 of which are first-author papers. Her research program is two-pronged: the first investigating biopsychosocial predictors of cognitive aging and the second investigating prevention strategies that may maintain or augment cognitive function and well-being in late life. The study of mindfulness-based training has become a central focus in Dr. Fiocco’s prevention research stream.
Jordan Kohn received his B.A. in biology from Reed College and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Neuroscience Graduate Program at Emory University and the Yerkes National Primate Research Center. His research interests are 1) to elucidate the biological mechanisms by which social adversity affects human health and well being, and 2) to investigate the extent to which positive changes in the social environment, specifically psychosocial interventions like meditation, can mitigate the deleterious effects of adversity. Kohn also explore how early-life maltreatment alters immune development and its health consequences later in life. Concurrent with his graduate work, he teaches Cognitively-Based Compassion Training at Emory and has had the privilege of introducing CBCT to adolescents in foster care, children, undergraduates, physicians, and prisoners.
