ALUMNI
Former Graduate Students
Pallavi Aurora, Ph.D.
Pallavi is currently completing her post-doctoral fellowship at the VA Mid-Atlantic Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center (MIRECC) at the Durham VA Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina where she is engaged in research on substance use and trauma in post-deployment Veterans and provides evidence-based psychotherapy. Pallavi is also an adjunct faculty member at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Pallavi completed her clinical internship at the Durham VA Medical Center in 2022. Pallavi graduated from Creighton University with a B.A. in Psychology in 2016 where she worked as a research assistant under Dr. Alicia Klanecky focusing on emotion regulation and drinking motives. Her current research interests are focused on understanding the underlying emotion processes that drive and maintain maladaptive regulatory behaviors. Her work utilizes multimethod approaches including EMA and lab-based paradigms. Pallavi hopes to continue this line of work in her future research.
Stanley Seah, Ph.D.
Dr. Stanley Seah (he/him/his) was a graduate student in the Clinical Affective Science Lab at Kent State University. He obtained his PhD in 2022 after completing his APA-accredited clinical psychology internship at Duke University Medical Center. His research and clinical interests center on understanding transdiagnostic emotional processes and their interactions with stress in predicting risk for/resilience against psychopathology, and translating these research findings into intervention. During his time in the lab, he assisted with multiple research projects and developed proficiency in EMA, psychophysiology (e.g., heart rate, skin conductance, respiration, facial coding), linguistic analyses, and diagnostic interviewing. Following graduation, he is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh/UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital, where he aims to extend his line of work to marginalized communities (e.g., sexual/gender minorities) at risk of poorer mental health.
​
Lindsey Matt, Ph.D.
Lindsey is currently completing her post-doctoral fellowship at the Road Home Program at Rush University in Chicago, Illinois where she provides evidence-based psychotherapy to veterans with PTSD and engages in research on novel approaches to trauma treatment. Lindsey graduated from Ursinus College with a B.S. in Neuroscience and Psychology in 2008. Prior to her enrollment in graduate school she worked as a project coordinator and research assistant at Temple University under Drs. Lauren Alloy and Richard Heimberg and at Yale University under Dr. Jacob Tebes. She completed her clinical internship at Jesse Brown VAMC. Her research interests are in the role of emotion labeling in self-regulation and psychopathology. Her work utilizes multimethod approaches including EMA to better understand emotion processes within and between individuals and in response to mHealth interventions. Her work has been supported by the Association for Psychological Science, the American Psychological Association, and the U.S. National Committee for Psychological Science.
Jessica Flynn, Ph.D.
Jessica Flynn, Ph.D., was a graduate student in Dr. Coifman’s Lab and is currently a licensed psychologist at UCEBT, offering Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and other evidence-based treatments for complex mood and anxiety disorders across development. She completed her master's degree in developmental psychology at Queen's University, Canada, and her doctorate degree in clinical psychology at Kent State University, Kent, Ohio. Jessica's research focuses on better understanding the moment-to-moment emotion dynamics that contribute to the development and maintenance of maladaptive emotional responding in individuals with anxiety and depressive disorders. Additionally, she practices and tests contemplative practices as a mechanism for changing potentially maladaptive emotion dynamics. She completed her pre-doctoral internship at Primary Children's Hospital providing individual and family therapy and assessment for children and adolescents in outpatient, day treatment, and residential settings. Along with her training in psychopathology and emotional development, Jessica has specialized training in mindfulness and acceptance-based cognitive-behavioral therapies and studies the newest research on mindfulness and compassion-based meditations. With this background, she integrates knowledge of empirically-supported treatments and research on meditation, with her wide-ranging experience as a therapist and contemplative practitioner. Her goal is to use this approach to help children, adolescents, and adults suffering from chronic and complex emotional problems to begin living happy, fulfilling lives.
Former Post-Doctoral Researchers
​
David Disabato, Ph.D.
Dr. David Disabato was a postdoctoral research scholar in the Clinical Affective Science Lab at Kent State University from 2019 – 2022, after having previously graduating with his PhD in Clinical Psychology. He assisted with the Resilience and Adaptation to Injury (RAI) Study, which was supported by a NIMH R01 grant. He contributed to RAI data collection (e.g., SCID-5 interviews), data management (e.g., cleaning diary data), and data pre-processing (e.g., NOLDUS facial coding). Dr. Disabato was also involved in the Attention and Emotional Processing, Daily Coping Toolkit, and Daily Emotions in Therapy studies within the lab as well as COVID-19-related research collaborations with Dr. Jen Taber and Dr. Clarissa Thompson. During his post-doc, he enjoyed the opportunity to develop his grant writing skills, enhance his understanding of psychopathology, learn about experience sampling designs, and begin mentoring undergraduate and graduate students. Dr. Disabato is now a tenure-track faculty member in the Psychology Department at Baldwin Wallace University outside Cleveland, OH. He directs his own research lab - the Health and Well-being Lab - that combines together clinical, health, and positive psychology to better understand mechanisms of well-being in distressed populations.
​
Lee Gilman, Ph.D.
Lee Gilman was a post-doctoral fellow in Dr. Cofiman’s lab. She currently holds a postdoctoral position in the Daws lab at UT Health San Antonio. She is investigating the contributions of monoamine transporters in neuropsychiatric disorders and drug abuse. One project involves examining how age and sex influence functional changes in the dopamine transporter elicited by diet and exercise, to understand how these shifts influence vulnerability to drug abuse and eating disorders. Another is focused on investigating the role of the plasma membrane monoamine transporter in depression and antidepressant effectiveness. While in the Coifman lab, she genotyped 250 human saliva samples for over a dozen polymorphisms implicated in neuropsychiatric disorders. Under Dr. Coifman’s guidance, she analyzed associations between specific polymorphisms, or polymorphism combinations, and differences in responses to emotionally evocative stimuli. Finally, she compared film stimuli for emotion evocation under laboratory and online settings, and compiled an index of validated film stimuli as a resource for the emotion research community.