Kathryn Barber is a second-year doctoral student in the Clinical Psychology program in the Department of Psychology at 糖心传媒. Barber works in the Behavior Therapy and Research Lab and her research focuses on trichotillomania (hair-pulling disorder) as well as other OCD-related disorders. She participated in the spring 2024, Three Minute Thesis (3MT) Competition and qualified as one of the top ten event finalists. Barber鈥檚 3MT presentation was titled, 鈥淣eurocognitive Functioning in Trichotillomania鈥�&苍产蝉辫;and her research focused on neuropsychological characteristics of adults with this disorder. Trichotillomania is a relatively common condition that can cause significant distress, yet it remains under-recognized. The core of Barber鈥檚 research is to identify cognitive and emotional processes that contribute to the development and maintenance of the disorder. Barber hopes her work will inform treatment development and ultimately improve outcomes for people with trichotillomania.
Melanie Lorenz, a doctoral candidate in the Department of History, was recently awarded a . The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi annually awards 15 dissertation fellowships of $10,000 each to active members who are doctoral candidates and are completing dissertations.
Lorenz鈥檚 research on foreign-born midwives explores intersections between Americans鈥� ideas about immigration, gender roles and medical practices at the turn of the 20th century. Using records from state boards of health records, midwife registers, newspapers, birth records and contemporary medical journals, she investigates the personal consequences of the medicalization of pregnancy and childbirth for midwives.
Saba Heidari is a doctoral student in the Department of Computer Science studying adversarial attacks on neural networks. Heidari is a research assistant in the Machine Learning, Optimization and Data Lab (MODLab) under the supervision of Dr. Nasim Yahyasoltani. She is passionate about the field of machine learning and has more than twelve journal and conference publications as well as over 50 citations recorded in her research area. The core of Heidari鈥� s research studies involves leveraging medical images to augment the reliability of neural networks within the medical domain.
