I am a fifth year Ph.D. student at Brandeis University in the Social Developmental Psychology program. Currently, I am working with Dr. Derek Isaacowitz in the Lifespan Emotional Development Lab at Northeastern University. The over-arching theme of my research interest so far has been to investigate efficient ways of managing emotional situations and whether there are individual and age differences in strategies people use to regulate their emotions. In my dissertation, I am investigating the benefits of using acceptance and the harmful effects of suppression by examining the integration among experiential, behavioral, and physiological response systems, and their relationship with factors such as awareness, emotion regulation abilities, and healthy autonomic activity. Other areas of research include: emotional gaze preferences in bipolar disorder, age differences in understanding social gaffes, links between types of attention and awareness, and effects of stress on emotional memory.

Kristina Eichel did her PhD in Psychology at University of Cologne in 2016. She studied error detection and mindfulness with EEG. In 2016, she worked in the Social Cognition Center Cologne on social comparison, envy and mindfulness. From 2017 to 2019, Kristina worked as Postdoc at Brown University researching emotion-, attention- and self-related processing as mechanisms of mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) under supervision of Dr. Willoughby Britton and Dr. Jared Lindahl in their Clinical and Affective Neuroscience Lab. She investigated gender differences, social factors and diversity issues within MBIs. Since August 2019, she is in clinical training for systemic therapy at Charité, Berlin. She is engaged with Psychologists4Future and in other political activities addressing climate injustice. Her approach is inspired by Pleasure Activism by adrienne maree brown.