Christina Panas is a doctoral student in Clinical Psychology and was the Co-Lab Manager at the Center for Attachment Research; she also co-leads the lab’s Coding Interactive Behavior (CIB) group. She holds a research assistantship with Montefiore Medical Center, where she works with a pediatrician investigating the relationship between child development and maternal sensitivity. Her individual research integrates minority stress, objectification, and attachment theories to explore the effects of early relationships on later experiences of discrimination, shame, and embodiment among transgender and gender non-conforming individuals.

Michael Hager Is a doctoral candidate in Clinical Psychology and was the Co-Lab Manager at the Center for Attachment Research lab. His research is focused on operationalizing the Group Attachment-Based Intervention’s (GABI) REARING framework of therapeutic action to measure parental sensitivity and reflective functioning within the parent-child group of GABI. He is specifically interested in observing how the parent internalizes the REARING principles and incorporates them back into the parent-child dyadic interaction. He is involved in both the Parent REARING Coding System (PRCS) and REARING Coding System (RCS) groups, and works on the dissemination efforts of GABI as a Research Assistant with Montefiore Medical Center.

Amanda Arena-Miller is a doctoral candidate in Clinical Psychology. Her research focuses on the impact of somatic practices on body representation and awareness. For Amanda's dissertation, she is focusing on the ways that engaging in differing dance modalities impact body image and interoception. 

Koret Munguldar is a Doctoral Candidate in Clinical Psychology at the Center for Attachment Research. She is involved in the Body Group where she codes The Mirror Interviews, and second, she is involved in Group Attachment-Based Intervention (GABI) group where she focuses on coding clinician’s body organizing. Her present research explores the self and body experience in adolescence utilizing the Mirror Interview. Specifically, she looks at the relationship between attachment relationships, body awareness, and self-compassion in the cross-cultural context.

Kristin Lewis is a Doctoral student in Clinical Psychology and Research Assistant a the Center for Attachment Research. She is involved in the Coding Interactive Behavior (CIB) group and also the dissemination of the Group Attachment Based Intervention (GABI). Her primary research focus is validating and using a clinical code expansion to the CIB rating scale in order to examine the effects of treatment on these clinical domains in the randomized control trial (RCT) of GABI.

Lindsey Myers is a Doctoral student in Clinical Psychology and Research Assistant at the Center for Attachment Research. She is involved in the Coding Interactive Behavior (CIB) group, the Reflective Functioning (RF) coding group of Adult Attachment Interviews (AAI), and also the dissemination of the Group Attachment Based Intervention (GABI). Her research focuses on the potential impact of mother’s RF capabilities on the dyadic interaction between parent and child during free play sessions. It is her hope to further investigate the relationship between mother’s RF, protective factors, attachment classification, and parent-child behavior and how these factors may or may not impact retention rate of treatment for families within the randomized control trial (RCT) of GABI.

Edlyane Medina Escobar is a Doctoral Candidate in Clinical Psychology and a member of the Center for Attachment Research at NSSR. She is involved in the Group Attachment Based Intervention (GABI) dissemination efforts. Her Master Thesis consisted of a thematic analysis exploring cultural beliefs related to the concept of familism in the Parent-group component of GABI. Her main interests include cultural variations in families attending GABI and how these may affect their parenting beliefs. She is interested in exploring if cultural beliefs affect attachment patterns displayed in children and their caregivers.

Jennifer Halpern is a doctoral student in Clinical Psychology and a research assistant at the Center for Attachment Research. Her main interests analyze behavioral observations of parent-child dyads during free play sessions. Her MA thesis focused on early intervention, peer play psychotherapy (PPP), parenting stress, and adverse childhood experiences. Her dissertation has two parts: 1) analyzing the longitudinal effects of PPP, and 2) adapting and revising Dr. Feldman’s Coding Interactive Behavior manual to code 5-10 year-olds free play session with their caregiver.

Kehana Bonagura is a Doctoral Candidate in Clinical Psychology and a member of the Center for Attachment Research at NSSR. She has a background in race, gender, and sexuality studies. Her Master's Thesis investigates the relationship between acceptance concerns, depressive symptoms, and attachment styles for those who identify as bisexual. Kehana's research takes an intersectional approach to understanding attachment and marginalized identities. Her primary interest is studying the attachment of those who identify as both biracial and bisexual. She is also involved in the Rearing Coding Scale (RCS) coding group. 

Anthony Boiardo is a third-year Doctoral Candidate in Clinical Psychology at the Center for Attachment Research. His research focuses on the intergenerational transmission of body representation in sexual minority men. He is particularly interested in understanding the relationship between internalized homophobia, body shame, and self-objectification in gay-identifying males. His dissertation utilizes the unique paradigm of the Mirror Interview to explore the intersection of parental and cultural influences on body representation and the Adult Attachment Interview to understand the unique effect that attachment relationships have on the development of body representation. He currently leads the weekly Body Group meetings.

Trevor Friedman is a 2nd year PhD student whose research primarily focuses on clinicians' nonverbal behavior. He is part of the RCS coding group and co-leads a team that focuses on the nonverbal behaviors of clinicians working with parent-child dyads in GABI. He is also part of the Psychotherapy Research Lab, in which he researches the links between nonverbal synchrony and therapeutic alliance ruptures. Outside of school, Trevor is the Research, Development, and Training Coordinator at Embodied Mind Mental Health Counseling, a psychotherapy group practice. When he is not doing work, Trevor enjoys DJing, playing guitar, and singing in a rock band.

Hally Wolhandler is a PhD Candidate in Clinical Psychology at The New School. A researcher in the lab's Body Group, she is interested in how attachment affects body awareness. Her current research examines the contribution of visual art experience to interoception and Reflective Functioning in college students. She has also worked for the Group Attachment Based Intervention (GABI) as both a research assistant and clinical volunteer.

Kathryn LeNeave is a Doctoral Candidate in Clinical psychology at the Center for Attachment Research. She works on the group attachment based intervention (GABI) organizing and coding clinician supervision from the intervention sites. Her research focuses on how maternal stress and adversity, both past and present, can impact dyadic interactions between mother and child. Additionally, Kathryn is a reliable coder of the Strange Situation Procedure.

Nicole Brennan is a PhD Candidate in Clinical Psychology at NSSR. She came to The New School from a previous career in Neuroscience and fMRI. Her interests are interdisciplinary, spanning  neuroscience, attachment and psychoanalysis.  Her PhD dissertation looks at the effects of adverse childhood experiences on emotion regulation in the brain and adult attachment representations. It suggests a neurobiological mechanism for hypervigilance to threat. Nicole has a particular interest in neuropsychoanalysis across the lifespan.

Alden Farrar is a doctoral candidate in Clinical Psychology working on the training and implementation of remote Problem Management Plus (PM+) for community-based organizations. His MA thesis assessed the feasibility of a peer-to-peer intervention supporting Ugandan LGBTQ+ human rights defenders. He also codes consensual qualitative research (CQR) for a study of colonial mentality in Puerto Ricans. His main research interests focus on increasing global access to mental health care for children and adolescents through task sharing and community mental health models.

Grace Hartmann Drylewski is a doctoral candidate in Clinical Psychology and a member of the Center for Attachment Research. She is involved with the Group Attachment Based Intervention (GABI) and Coding Interactive Behavior (CIB) groups. Child development is the cornerstone of her research, specifically the pivotal role of social-emotional development, the effects of early childhood adversity, as well as the importance of developmental surveillance and early interventions. Her Master’s Thesis investigates the validity of a novel observational measure for monitoring child development.

Xiqiao Chen (Pronounced She-Chow) is a doctoral candidate in Clinical Psychology with broad interdisciplinary research interests focused on attachment, clinical training, psychoanalysis, culture, gender, and sexuality. Her master’s thesis focuses on developing innovative, engaging virtual tools for clinical training. She is also the lab manager of the Safran Center Research Group and a member of the Frantz Fanon Lab for Intersectional Psychology.

Cordelia Baum is a doctoral student broadly interested in how attachment relates to intergenerational transmission of parent-child interactions and child maltreatment risk, as well as the role of attachment in the formation of personality disorders. She is a member of the REARING Coding System Group, the Parent REARING Coding System Group, the Reflective Functioning (RF) Coding Group, and the Coding Interactive Behavior GABI Project.