OUR TEAM
Scientific Minds
KARIN G. COIFMAN, PHD
Lab Director
Karin grew up in southern Connecticut and attended Yale University where she completed an undergraduate degree in English. From there, she worked for several years for a community health and education agency in NY where she got her first real taste of the field of psychology. In 2001, Karin went to graduate school at Columbia University and worked under the mentorship of George Bonanno, completing a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology in 2008. Karin stayed on at Columbia for a two year post-doctoral fellowship, under the mentorship of Geraldine Downey and Eshkol Rafaeli. She has been on the faculty in the Department of Psychological Sciences, as part of the Clinical Psychology Program at Kent State University since 2010. Karin currently lives in Akron, OH with her husband, two daughters and their dogs.
GRADUATE STUDENTS
BEN MITCHELL
5th Year Graduate Student
Ben is a fifth-year doctoral student in the Clinical Psychology Program at Kent State University. After graduating from KSU in 2018 with a B.A. in psychology, he continued to work in the Clinical Affective Science Lab as a Project Coordinator before continuing as a PhD student in the Fall of 2020. His research is broadly focused on emotional processing in psychopathology. He has been working on two lines of research. First, his research focuses on the role of discrete emotions—particularly disgust—in the etiology and maintenance of psychopathology. Second, he is interested in emotion dynamics of daily life, and how they might relate to risk-related processes (e.g., maladaptive behaviors) and wellbeing. Ben is currently working on projects examining and comparing the mechanisms of Pavlovian disgust and fear conditioning.
BRITTANY BAUGHER
4th Year Graduate Student
Brittany is currently a fourth-year graduate student in Clinical Psychology. She graduated from Ohio State University in 2018 with a major in Psychology and a minor in Neuroscience. After her bachelor’s degree, Brittany received a master's degree in Experimental Psychology at Villanova University where she primarily studied early life stress and sex differences in stress resilience within rodent models. Brittany then worked as a research coordinator at the Cleveland Clinic while working part-time as an adjunct professor. Brittany has always been interested in how experiences throughout the lifespan shape risk and resilience in the development of psychopathology. Her current projects within the lab focus on the role of positive and negative early life experiences in shaping emotional reactivity in adulthood.
EMILY GAWLIK
4th Year Graduate Student
Emily is currently a third-year graduate student in Clinical Psychology. She graduated from the University of Mississippi with a B.A. in Psychology in 2019, where she completed a senior honors thesis under Dr. Stefan Schulenberg that examined correlates of posttraumatic stress in a hurricane-exposed community sample. Following graduation, Emily worked as a research assistant at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill Institute for Trauma Recovery as part of the AURORA Study. Broadly, her research interests include risk and protective factors in the development of psychopathology after stressful life events–and, in particular, what factors might contribute to greater wellbeing and effective coping. She is also interested in how individual differences in interpretation might impact emotion regulatory processes.
MEGAN KORHUMMEL
2nd Year Graduate Student
Megan is currently a first-year graduate student in Clinical Psychology. She graduated from the San Diego State University with a B.A. in Psychology with an emphasis in Neuroscience in 2023. Megan completed a senior honors thesis under Dr. Vanessa Malcarne that examined sociodemographic factors as moderators of the association between cancer fatalism and health-related quality of life in Hispanic-American adults. Broadly, her research interests include the development of psychopathology in the context of chronic illness and what factors might contribute to greater well-being and effective coping. She is also interested in how emotional beliefs might impact emotion-regulatory processes throughout the illness trajectory.
POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCHER
BRANDON BORING
Postdoctoral Researcher
Brandon is a post-doctoral scholar working on the Student Life Study. He recently graduated from Texas A&M University with a Ph.D. in Social and Personality Psychology, where he studied the role of the self in pain experiences. He previously earned an M.A. in Experimental Psychology from Towson University and a B.A. in Biochemistry from McDaniel College. Before earning his Ph.D. he worked in pain laboratories at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland, Baltimore. His research interests include biopsychosocial factors that both contribute to and are impacted by the experience of pain, self-conscious emotions, and existential concerns of the self.
KAYLA SCAMALDO
Postdoctoral Researcher
Kayla is a postdoctoral scholar at Kent State University. She received her B.A. in Psychology in 2017 and her M.A. in Clinical Psychology in 2019 from Cleveland State University. She recently completed her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Toledo. Her research interests concentrate on emotional, social, and physical factors that precipitate or occur as a consequence of dysregulated emotions and behaviors among individuals with psychopathology (e.g., borderline personality disorder pathology). She is also interested in sleep disturbance as a transdiagnostic mechanism..
JULIE SCHUPBACH
SLS Project Coordinator
PROJECT COORDINATOR
Julie began working for the CAS lab in the summer of 2022 while completing her undergraduate degree. She graduated from Kent State University in May 2023 with her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. From March 2023 to September 2023, Julie worked as the project coordinator for the Resilience and Adaptation to Injury (RAI) Study. After that, Julie undertook a new position as project coordinator for the Kent State Student Life Study. When she isn't managing research, Julie enjoys spending time with family and friends, exercising, cooking, and watching movies.
Ashley is Project Coordinator for the Resilience and Adaptation to Injury (RAI) Study. She graduated from Kent State University in 2015 with a B.S. in Psychology. Her future goals include enrollment in a Clinical Psychology Doctorate program. Her research interests focus on the credibility and clinical utility of dimensional models of psychopathology.
RAI Project Coordinator
ASHLEY HALADAY
OKSANA ZAREFOSS
SLS Recruitment and Social Media Coordinator
Oksana graduated from Kent State University in 2024 with a B.S. in Psychology and a B.A. in Criminal Justice Studies. During her time at Kent State, she worked with the Clinical Affective Science Lab from the summer of 2023 to the summer of 2024, gaining valuable hands-on research experience. Her dedication and strong performance led to an expanded role as Recruitment and Social Media Coordinator for the Student Life Study, where she now oversees recruitment events, manages social media content creation and strategy, and organizes engaging student-focused events. Passionate about combining her academic interests and professional experience, Oksana plans to continue her education by pursuing a graduate degree in Forensic Psychology.
RESEARCH ASSISTANTS
Addi Thompson
Addison Wright
Alex Moody
Alexia Roush
Allison Hlad
Amanda Shafer
Brooke Sustar
Caleb Hicks
Cashyra Walker
Elena Bagwell
Eliza Brinton
Elizabeth Gampolo
Emily Oswald
Emma Zane
Erin Norris
Faith Matlock
Grace Meuleman
Iris Deshmukh
Izzy Niedermier
Jasmin Johnson
Jenna Onesko
Jillian Thomas
Johanna Confer
Jordan Hitt
Kaiya Caraboolad
Kate Brown
Lauren Wells
Lilah Buckley
Luke Kerec
Madeline Irwin
Maria Reichard
Megan Montoney
Parastoo Aramesh
Rachel Weis
Sakura Johnson
Seema Daher
Sienna Wilson
Sofia Cintron Calero
Summer Bailing
Tanushree varsha Ujjineni