People
Director
Dr. Gregory P. Strauss
Dr. Strauss is an Associate Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Georgia. He directs the CAN Lab and Georgia Psychiatric Risk Evaluation Program (G-PREP). He is originally from Maryland. His research primarily examines the phenomenology, etiology, assessment, and treatment of negative symptoms in individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia and youth at clinical high-risk for psychosis.
Google Scholar Profile Email: gstrauss@uga.edu
*Note: Dr. Strauss will not be recruiting a graduate student to apply during the fall 2022 cycle/fall 2023 start date*
Employees
Anna Knippenberg
Anna Knippenberg
Anna Knippenberg
Anna is our lab manager in charge of our studies focused on individuals with schizophrenia. She also coordinates our R61 cognitive training for emotion regulation fMRI grant. She is originally from Texas. Her research interests involve neural processes underlying cognitive and affective processes in schizophrenia.
Jason Levin
Anna Knippenberg
Anna Knippenberg
Jason is our lab manager in charge of our studies focused on individuals at risk for psychosis. He also coordinates the CAPR R01 grant. He is originally from Illinois. His primary research interests involve mechanisms of cognitive impairment and blunted affect in schizophrenia. Rumor has it that Jason counted to infinity...twice.
Alysia Berglund
Anna Knippenberg
Ashley Zollicoffer
Alysia is a full-time research coordinator paid to work on the GAINS R01 clinical high-risk study. She is originally from Hawaii. Her primary research interests are in emotion regulation and serious mental illness.
Ashley Zollicoffer
Ashley Zollicoffer
Ashley Zollicoffer
Ashley is a full-time research coordinator paid to work on the GAINS R01 clinical high-risk study. She is originally from California and graduated from Florida A&M University with a master’s degree in Community Psychology. Her research interests involve cultural and environmental influences on psychosis.
Delaney Collins
Ashley Zollicoffer
Delaney Collins
Delaney is a full-time research coordinator paid to work on the ProNET grant evaluating biomarkers and clinical factors associated with psychosis risk. She is originally from Wisconsin. Her research interests involve the initial onset of psychotic symptoms and functional outcomes of individuals with schizophrenia.
Gifty Ayawvi
Ashley Zollicoffer
Delaney Collins
Gifty is a full-time research coordinator paid to work on the CAPR and Emotion Regulation grants. She is originally from Georgia and graduated from UGA with a B.S. in Psychology. Her primary research interests involve culture, racism, and psychological health outcomes.
Sierra Jarvis
Sierra Jarvis
Sierra Jarvis
Sierra is a full-time research coordinator paid to work on the ProNET grant evaluating biomarkers and clinical factors associated with psychosis risk. She is originally from Utah. Her research interests involve the etiology of negative symptoms in schizophrenia.
Postdoctoral Fellows
Dr. Michael Spilka
Dr. Michael Spilka
Dr. Michael Spilka
Dr. Spilka received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Calgary. He completed his clinical internship at St. Joseph's Healthcare in Hamilton and clinical postdoctoral fellowship in neuropsychology at the University Health Network in Toronto. His research interests involve neurobiological mechanisms of schizophrenia. His methodological background is in fMRI, eye tracking, and neuropsychological assessment.
Dr. Lauren Luther
Dr. Michael Spilka
Dr. Michael Spilka
Dr. Luther received her Ph.D. from IUPUI after completing her clinical internship at UIC Psychiatry. She then completed a 2 year postdoctoral fellowship in neuroimaging at Harvard Medical School. Her research interests focus on the mechanisms underlying negative symptoms in schizophrenia and the development of novel interventions for those mechanisms using an experimental therapeutics approach.
Graduate Students
Ivan Ruiz
Lisa Bartolomeo
Lisa Bartolomeo
Ivan is a 7th year Clinical Psychology Ph.D. student. He is originally from Tijuana, Mexico and San Diego, California. His research focuses on identifying mechanisms underlying negative symptoms of schizophrenia in relation to effort-cost computation using pupillometry. He will be completing his clinical internship at the Eastern Kansas VA Hospital in Leavenworth, KS beginning summer 2021.
Lisa Bartolomeo
Lisa Bartolomeo
Lisa Bartolomeo
Lisa is a 5th year Clinical Psychology Ph.D. student. She is originally from Arizona. Her research interests involve emotion regulation and mechanisms underlying negative symptoms in individuals with schizophrenia and youth at clinical high-risk for psychosis using EEG/ERPs and fMRI. She is funded by an F31 grant from NIMH to explore the neural basis of avolition/anhedonia as a reduction in the positivity offset in schizophrenia.
Ian Raugh
Lisa Bartolomeo
Luyu Zhang
Ian is a 3rd year Clinical Psychology Ph.D. student. He is originally from Maryland. His research interests involve examining mechanisms underlying transdiagnostic impairments in emotion regulation and acceptance, specifically using digital phenotyping technologies. Ian’s web link: https://imraugh.wordpress.com/
Luyu Zhang
Sydney James
Luyu Zhang
Luyu is a 1st year graduate student in Clinical Psychology. He is originally from China. His research interests involve the etiology of schizophrenia. He is focusing on a bioecosystem model of negative symptoms and interactions between environmental and neural factors using multiple methods, such as fMRI, digital phenotyping, environmental coding, and social network analysis.
Sydney James
Sydney James
Sydney James
Sydney is a 1st year Clinical Psychology Ph.D. student. She is originally from North Carolina. Her research interests involve identifying mechanisms underlying negative symptoms. She is focusing on a bioecosystem model of negative symptoms which evaluates cultural components of the broader macrosystem using a multi-method approach that consists of digital phenotyping, network analysis, and cultural scales.
Undergraduate Research Assistants
Rachel Sinclair
Rachel Sinclair
Rachel Sinclair
Nia Cole
Rachel Sinclair
Rachel Sinclair
Ada Hutcheson
Rachel Sinclair
Ada Hutcheson
Junior Scientists
The Strauss Girls
Brilliant, funny, mischievous- their lab duties include providing background song and dance routines during lab meetings, Zoom bombing, coloring on Daddy's papers, eating popsicles, and stealing the show with their cuteness
Lab Mascot
Blue James
Good boy blue is the CAN Lab's furry mascot. His lab duties include stealing the show with his cuteness, activating the ventral striatum of lab members with tail wags and licks, fighting off rival labs who try to steal our research ideas, eating copious amounts of food at lab parties, barking at R when it fails to comply with his Mommy's wishes, cuddles, adorableness, mischief, driving all of the girl dogs crazy, and sporting CAN lab gear like the handsome dog model that he is.
Lab Alumni (PHDs)
Dr. Katiah Llerena
Dr. Katiah Llerena
Dr. Katiah Llerena
Katiah completed her PhD in 2013. Her dissertation examined emotional maintenance in schizophrenia using ERPs. She is currently in private practice in San Francisco.
Dr. Sara Sullivan
Dr. Katiah Llerena
Dr. Katiah Llerena
Sara completed her PhD in 2016. Her dissertation focused on the effects of emotion regulation on subsequent cognitive control in schizophrenia using ERPs. She is currently a staff psychologist at the Bedford VA in MA.
Dr. Lindsay Morra
Dr. Katiah Llerena
Dr. Lindsay Morra
Lindsay completed her PhD in 2016. Her dissertation examined the association between metabolic dysfunction and cognition in schizophrenia. She is currently a staff psychologist in the psychiatry department at Johns Hopkins.
Dr. Kayla Whearty
Dr. Katherine Frost Visser
Dr. Lindsay Morra
Kayla completed her PhD in 2017. Her dissertation examined the role of emotional memory impairment in anhedonia in schizophrenia using eye tracking. She is currently a staff psychologist at NYU and Assistant Professor of Neurology at Hofstra University.
Dr. Katherine Frost Visser
Dr. Katherine Frost Visser
Dr. Katherine Frost Visser
Katie completed her Ph.D. in 2020. Her dissertation examined mechanisms of emotion regulation in youth at clinical high-risk for psychosis using EMA. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Brown University.
Lab Alumni (Research Coordinators)
Dr. Lauren Catalano
Lauren was our very first lab manager from 2010-2011 when the lab was at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. She completed her PhD at University of Maryland College Park with Dr. Jack Blanchard and a post doctoral fellow at UCLA and the Los Angeles VA working with Dr. Michael Green. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at UCLA and the Los Angeles VA.
Dr. Adam Culbreth
Adam was our lab manager from 2011-2013 when the lab was at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He completed his PhD in clinical psychology with Dr. Deanna Barch at Washington University St Louis and a postdoctoral fellowship at Maryland working with Dr. Jim Gold. He is currently an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
Dr. Katie Ossenfort
Katie was our lab manager from 2014-2015 when the lab was at Binghamton University. She completed her PhD in cognitive neuroscience with David Isaacowitz at Northeastern University. She is currently a postdocotral fellow at Tufts University working with Heather Urry.
Izie Dickinson
Izie was our lab manager from 2015-2016 when the lab was at Binghamton University. She is currently a registered psychiatric nurse.
Ian Raugh
Ian was our initial CAN lab manager when the lab moved to UGA from 2017-2019. He is currently a grad student in Clinical Psychology at UGA working with Dr. Strauss in the CAN Lab
Cristina Gonzalez
Cristina was an employee and lab manager from 2017-2020. She is currently a PhD student in IO Psychology working with Alicia Grandey at Penn State University.
Kelsey Macdonald
Kelsey was a research coordinator on our emotion regulation R21 grant in participants at clinical high-risk for psychosis from 2020-2021.
Luyu Zhang
Luyu was a full-time paid research coordinator working on our R21 effort as a secondary reinforcer grant from NIMH from 2020-2021. He is currently a grad student in Clinical Psychology at UGA working with Dr. Strauss in the CAN Lab.
Sydney James
Sydney was our lab manager from 2019-2021. She is currently a grad student in Clinical Psychology at UGA working with Dr. Strauss in the CAN Lab