Aliona Tsypes
Aliona Tsypes received her B.A. in psychology from Hunter College of the City University of New
York in 2013 and joined the BMDI as a graduate student in the Fall of 2014. She is
interested in utilizing multiple levels of analysis in the laboratory and daily life
with the goal of examining cognitive and emotional responses in individuals with different
histories of self-injurious thoughts and behaviors (SITBs). She is also interested
in elucidating risk pathways through which the interactions between cognition, emotion,
genes, and environment might lead to the onset and maintenance of psychopathology
and SITBs. Aliona is currently completing her internship at the University of Pittsburgh
Department of Psychiatry/Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic.
Cope Feurer
Cope Feurer received her B.S. in psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
in 2013. She joined the BMDI as a graduate student in the Fall of 2015. She is interested
in the utilization of peripheral and neurophysiological methods to examine the relation
between interpersonal stress responses and adolescent depression as well as risk factors,
such as cognitive vulnerabilities and deficits in emotion regulation, that contribute
to stress generation and reactivity in youth. Cope is currently completing her internship
at the University of Illinois at Chicago Department of Psychiatry.
Kiera James
Kiera James received her B.A. in psychology from Swarthmore College in 2015. She joined the BMDI
as a graduate student in the Fall of 2016. She is interested in using peripheral and
neurophysiological methods to examine markers of risk for self-injurious thoughts
and behaviors (SITBs) in children and adolescents as well as examining cognitive and
emotional responses in youth with different histories of SITBs. In particular, she
is interested in examining the impact of interpersonal relationships on risk for SITBs,
focusing on proposed mechanisms of risk across multiple units of analysis.
Claire Foster
Claire Foster received her B.A. in psychology from Cornell University. She joined the BMDI as a
graduate student in the Fall of 2017. Her research interests focus primarily on proximate
mechanisms of development, and the processes through which disparate developmental
trajectories arise early in life. In particular, she is interested in examining the
processes through which environmental factors, such as parental symptomology and parenting
behavior, may increase risk for depression in children by impacting early social learning
and attentional patterns in infancy and early childhood.
Lab Manager
Holly Kobezak
Holly Kobezak received her B.A. in psychology from Montclair State University in 2018 and joined
the BMDI as a lab manager during the summer of 2019. She is interested in using multiple
levels of analysis to explore mechanisms through which risk for internalizing psychopathology,
such as depression and anxiety, develops during the first few years of a child's life.
After her time as a lab manager, she hopes to pursue a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology
