Lab Members
EMOTION, HEALTH, AND PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY LAB AT YALE UNIVERSITY
Wendy Berry Mendes
LAB DIRECTOR
Dr. Mendes is the Chris Argyris Professor of Psychology at Yale University. Her research questions sit at the intersection of social, personality, and biological psychology and primarily concern questions regarding embodiment: how emotions, thoughts, and intentions are experienced in the body and how bodily responses shape and influence thoughts, behaviors, and emotions. Some current research areas include coping with stigma and discrimination, dyadic intergroup interactions, affect contagion, mind-body relations across the life course, effects of stress on decision-making, and stress management interventions.
Yancy Y. Niu
POSTGRADUATE ASSOCIATE
Yancy Niu is a postgraduate associate in the Department of Psychology at Yale University. He earned his B.S. in Clinical Psychology from UC San Diego and recently completed his M.A. in Clinical Psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University. His research focuses on understanding the mechanisms of suicide. He is particularly interested in (1) transdiagnostic cognitive-affective risk factors and (2) behavioral, physiological, and linguistic markers for objective assessment. In future work, Yancy aims to explore the dynamic interaction between risk factors, moving beyond reliance on single indicators, and to capture underlying cognitive and emotional processes through an interdisciplinary approach.
Yancy’s CV: Google Docs
Maria Monroy
RESEARCH SCIENTIST
Maria Monroy is a Research Scientist in the Department of Psychology at Yale University. She was previously a Ford Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. She completed her Ph.D. in Social/Personality Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. She also received her B.A. from UC Berkeley as the top undergraduate in psychology— with highest honors in psychology and high distinction in general scholarship. Maria’s research covers multiple facets of emotion science, such as expression, experience, and culture. A large portion of her attention is devoted to investigating the beneficial effects of discrete positive emotions, such as awe, on stress, social connection, health, and well-being.
Maria’s CV: Google Docs
Jieni Zhou
POST-DOCTORAL FELLOW
Jieni Zhou is a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Psychology at Yale University. She earned her Ph.D. in Social Psychology with a concentration in Quantitative Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She also holds a master’s degree in Developmental Psychology from Cornell University and graduated with honors and high distinction from Bryn Mawr College with a B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Education. Her research focuses on the intersection of positive emotions and social relationships, with a particular emphasis on co-experienced positive emotion. Her work aims to understand how co-experienced positive emotion influences mental, physical, relational, and community well-being. Additionally, her research explores ways (e.g., high-quality listening) to nurture these communal emotional experiences.
Jieni’s CV: Google Docs
Gold Okafor
POST-DOCTORAL FELLOW
Gold Okafor is Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Psychology at Yale University. She earned her PhD in Social and Personality Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. During this time, she was a Ford Predoctoral Fellow. Her work applies emotion research to investigate racial and gender disparities. In one line of research, she explores disparate judgments and interactions towards an emotional person as a function of their race, gender, and emotion. In another line of research, she examines the cultural validity of emotion regulation constructs among marginalized communities.
Benjamin Gelbart
POST-DOCTORAL FELLOW
Ben Gelbart is an evolutionary social psychologist and Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Psychology and the Human Relations Area Files at Yale University. He received his PhD in evolutionary psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2025. In his research, he seeks to understand the underlying cognitive architecture of romantic jealousy, including the algorithms governing its activation, the behaviors which it is associated, and the other emotions, if any, to which it is connected. More broadly, he is interested in understanding the origins of emotions as discrete adaptations or emergent psychological constructions. In his research on these topics, Ben makes use of a wide variety of methods, including large-scale cross-cultural surveys, computational modeling, and in-vivo lab manipulations of emotion.
Doron Atias
POST-DOCTORAL FELLOW
Doron is a Rothschild Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Psychology at Yale University. His research focuses on the social value of human vocalizations. Particularly, he is interested in how the human voice communicates emotion, how emotional vocalizations regulate social behavior, and what motivates people to engage with (or disengage from) others' emotional expressions. Doron received his PhD in Psychology and MA in Clinical Neuropsychology from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he worked under the supervision of Prof. Hillel Aviezer. At Yale, he is part of the Affective Science and Culture Lab, led by Dr. Maria Gendron, and is an enthusiastic collaborator with Prof. Wendy Berry Mendes and the Emotion, Health, and Psychopathology Lab.
Clara Sava-Segal
POST-DOCTORAL FELLOW
Clara Sava-Segal is a Wu Tsai Postdoctoral Fellow at Yale University, co-mentored with Elizabeth Goldfarb. She earned her Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuroscience from Dartmouth College, where her research examined individual differences in how people perceive and interpret the same information and how these differences shape subsequent memory. As a postdoctoral fellow, she is extending this work to investigate how physiological and affective states shape interpretation and memory, with a particular focus on the effects of stress.
Link to CV: https://csavasegal.github.io/Sava_Segal_CV_2.pdf
Sienna Bland-Abramson
GRADUATE STUDENT
Sienna Bland-Abramson is a graduate student in the Social Psychology doctoral program at Yale University. She graduated with highest distinction and college honors from the University of California, Los Angeles, with a B.A. in Psychology. Her research examines how affective and physiological processes interact in close romantic relationships at both the individual and dyadic levels, with a focus on their implications for emotional well-being, social connection, and physical health.
Paige Freeburg
GRADUATE STUDENT
Paige Freeburg is a Social Psychology PhD student. She graduated summa cum laude from Baylor University in 2022 with a B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Dance and then was the lab manager for the Laboratory on Social and Affective Neuroscience at Georgetown University. Paige studies pain and its relationship with our physiology, emotions, and social world. Outside the lab, Paige is a tap dancer and loves Marvel/The Pitt and finding celiac-safe foods!
Paige’s CV: Google Docs
Doris Chi
GRADUATE STUDENT
Doris Chi is an incoming first-year graduate student in the lab. She received an MPH in Social and Behavioral Sciences from Yale University and a BA in Psychology and Statistics from Smith College. Her research interests focus on how social stress influences psychophysiology and relationship processes. Her past work has examined identity, stigma, and their health implications. She is interested in applying quantitative/computational methods to her future work.
Doris's CV: Google Docs
Juliette Kosmont
THESIS STUDENT
Juliette is a sophomore at Yale University from Monterey, California. She is majoring in Cognitive Science, with a focus on group behavior, specifically individual versus group choices. She is eager to deepen her understanding of cognitive biases, social norms, and decision-making processes to better analyze social and economic dynamics. Outside of the lab, Juliette is on the track and field team and enjoys riding horses. She loves cooking for her friends and family and exploring new places.
Kristine Li
THESIS STUDENT
Kristine is a junior majoring in Cognitive Science, with certificates in Statistics and Education Studies. She's especially interested in how decision-making and perception are affected during stress-related activities. On campus, she leads both Yale HOSA and the Fuzhou Students Association, and she’s excited to be joining her first-ever Danceworks performance this year! Outside of academics, Kristine loves cooking Chinese food, stargazing on long walks, and traveling to places filled with cherished memories.
Taheoon Kim
THESIS STUDENT
Taehoon is a senior in Morse College, originally from Seoul, South Korea. He is majoring in Psychology with a concentration in Neuroscience. His research interests focus on the intersection of culture and technology, particularly how the internet, AI, and social media shape the way people form opinions and connect with others across cultural lines. Outside of the lab, Taehoon enjoys watching movies, cooking, traveling, and visiting museums.