Past Trainees

RECENT POSTDOCTORAL TRAINEES

Lindsey Baker, Ph.D. (Preceptor, Merril Silverstein)
Research Associate
Davis School of Gerontology, USC

Latrica E. Best, Ph.D.  (Preceptor, Eileen Crimmins)
Assistant Professor
Pan African Studies and Sociology
University of Louisville

As a trained social gerontologist and demographer, my research interests encompass race and gender differences in population health over the life course as well as the biodemography of aging.  Currently, my research explores the nature in which various socially defined trajectories initiate and sustain race disparities in the health of African-American and white women from emerging adulthood to later life.  Additionally, I am interested in the role that educational achievement serves in creating distinct health trajectories for different race groups.  Other research interests include examining both biomarker and survey data to establish potential between- and within-group variation in health among older diverse populations.  Here, my goals are two-fold; I am interested in 1) evaluating the maturation process of chronic diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease and their social and biological implications toward longevity and 2) examining whether biomarker/gold standard thresholds should be re-examined along more demographically defined lines throughout the life course. 

Katherine Delellis Henderson, Ph.D. (Preceptor, Leslie Bernstein)
Assistant Research Scientist
Department of Population Sciences
Division of Cancer Etiology,
City of Hope National Medical Center

Jennifer Prescott, Ph.D.  (Preceptor, Leslie Bernstein) Research Fellow Department of Epidemiology School of Public Health Harvard University

RECENT PREDOCTORAL TRAINEES

Jason Arimoto (Preceptor:  Caleb Finch)
Department of Molecular Biology
USC

Jessica Brommelhoff (Preceptor, Margaret Gatz)
Doctoral Student
Department of Psychology, USC
Internship, UCLA-Semel Institute for Neuroscience

Nicole Gatto (Preceptor, Wendy Mack)
Research Fellow
Department of Epidemiology
School of Public Health
UCLA

Elizabeth Hughes Davis (Preceptor, Thomas McNeill)

Randi Jones (Preceptor, Margaret Gatz)
Doctoral Student
Department of Psychology, USC

Nichole Kryla Lighthall (Preceptor, Mara Mather)
Doctoral Student
School of Gerontology, USC

My research attempts to integrate perspectives from psychiatry, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience in order to understand how cognitive processing changes with age. Before transferring to the Davis School, I used experimental design to investigate the impact of stress on emotional memory and decision making in younger and older adults. Specifically, my studies looked at how physiological responses to stress (such as increased cortisol and alpha amylase secretion) may influence 1) how details are bound together in memory, 2) how much risk people are willing to take when gambling, and 3) whether the effect of stress on memory binding and risk taking varies with age. At USC, I am following up on these research questions by using fMRI to monitor brain activation during decision making under stress.

Ricardo Reyes (Preceptors:  Merril Silverstein and Jack McArdle)
Doctoral Student
Department of Psychology, USC

My research interests include studying the application of quantitative methods in identification of factors that lead to feelings of hopelessness, chronic depression and/or anxiety. More specifically, I’m interested in the development and refinement of applicable psychometric instruments used to both make inferences about and diagnose aging and minority populations. By taking a diverse set of methodology courses, I hope to further narrow my area of concentration.

Carlos Rodriguez (Preceptor, Margaret Gatz)
Doctoral Student
Department of Psychology, USC
Individual Predoctoral NRSA

My research interests include identifying modifiable risk factors of dementia, and improving the assessment of neurocognitive functioning in culturally diverse elders. My current study documents perceptions of dementia among Latinos in an effort to understand help-seeking behaviors and barriers to its care in this population. This data will also inform the development and evaluation of a fotonovela (a comic-book style literary format with soap-opera themes) to educate Latino families on dementia symptoms and treatment.

Emily Rosario, Ph.D. (Preceptor, Christian Pike)
Director of Research Institute
Casa Colina Centers for Rehabilitation
Pomona, CA

Nitzan Roth (Preceptor, Wendy Mack)
M.D. Student
Keck School of Medicine, USC

Emily Shoenhofen Sharp(Preceptor, Margaret Gatz)
Department of Psychology, USC

My interest in aging began as a research associate for the New England Centenarian Study, a study of 100-year-olds. Working with these long-lived families, I learned that successful aging is more than the number of years lived. I also observed what seemed to be a personality type associated with the most cognitively intact individuals.      
In graduate school, I have sought to investigate these observations, particularly the relationship between cognitive engagement and cognitive functioning. I am using longitudinal data from the Swedish Adoption/Twin Study of Aging (SATSA) to examine the personality trait of openness to experience (defined as an intrinsic quest for knowledge, curiosity, and enjoyment of new experiences) and its relationship to cognitive functioning in later life. My dissertation is evaluating individual differences in the longitudinal trajectory of openness to experience over the second half of the lifespan and the potential moderating effects of gender, zygosity, education, health, disability, and death.

Bernard Steinman (Preceptor, Jon Pynoos)
Postdoctoral Fellow
Center for Health Care Research
Brown University

My research examines how vision impairment in late life influences other health dimensions to result in secondary health outcomes such as falls.

Kathryn Thomas (Preceptor, Kathleen Wilber)
Adjunct Faculty
Georgia State University

Sarinnapha (Fah) Vasunilashorn (Preceptor, Caleb Finch)
Postdoctoral Fellow
Princeton University