Staff
Priscilla Martin
Research Assistant - San Francisco
Priscilla Martin
Research Assistant - San Francisco
Priscilla is the San Francisco Research Assistant for the Interventions Project. She graduated from UC Santa Cruz with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. She is interested in evaluating the psychological perspectives that contribute to the incarceration of youth and the subsequent outcomes of remediation. Priscilla intends on pursing a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology with an emphasis in Forensic Psychology.
Alejandra Hilbert
Lab Manager & Research Assistant
Alejandra Hilbert
Lab Manager & Research Assistant
Alejandra (she/they) graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with degrees in Psychology and Legal Studies. Passionate about engineering psychology, she is eager to explore how user-centered technology can support human perception and enhance decision-making. With an emphasis on creating impactful digital tools, Alejandra's research aims to bridge the gap between psychology and technology to benefit diverse populations.
Post-Docs & Grad Students
Lina Montoya
Dr Montoya is a postdoctoral fellow jointly appointed at UNC Chapel Hill and UC Berkeley. She has been a part of the Risk Resilience Lab since 2016; since then, her role has been as a biostatistician, applying causal inference estimation and inference techniques for randomized and observational studies to various projects. Currently, her research in the lab involves point-treatment and longitudinal causal inference methods to study individualized interventions for reducing recidivism among adult offenders with mental illness.
- Email:lmontoya@berkeley.edu
Luyi Jian
Luyi Jian is a doctoral student at the School of Social Welfare. Her research interests include criminal justice, prevention and intervention of youth antisocial behavior, with a focus on developmentally wise interventions. Before pursuing her master’s degree in social work, Luyi was a police officer in Shanghai, China. She was the core member of a research project that examined the geographic patterns and behavioral characteristics of adult serial burglars. During her MSW program, she investigated young fathers in jails and explored associations between father-child relationship, behavioral health factors, and recidivism. Luyi holds a B.E. from Tongji University, an M.S. from People’s Public Security University of China, and an M.S.W. from Washington University in St. Louis.
- Email:luyijian@berkeley.edu
Aldazia Green
Aldazia Green is a first-year MSW/Ph.D. student at the School of Social Welfare. Her research interests include examining the systemic and individual factors contributing to recidivism. Specifically, she is interested in addressing mental health factors that commonly affect justice-involved populations through investigating effective prevention interventions. Before attending UC Berkley, Aldazia received her BA in Psychology from Rutgers University. As a McNair Scholar at Rutgers, she examined if anti-Black women's biases and empathy have an effect on Black maternal health perceptions. Outside of her previous research experiences, Aldazia became an intern at New Jersey Scholarship and Transformative Education in Prison organization ( NJ-Step), where she supported qualifying returning citizens in their transition from prison to college.
Student Research Assistants
Ruhao (Irene) Pang
Research Assistant
Ruhao (Irene) Pang
Research Assistant
Ruhao (Irene) Pang is a third-year student double-majoring in Sociology and Media Studies with a concentration in Media Law & Policy at University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests include racial justice, political sociology, and global health. After graduation, she hopes to apply for a public policy graduate school. She is passionate about making changes to reduce inequality and promote social justice to help marginalized groups and minoritized communities.
- Email:ruhaopang@berkeley.edu
Grace Yee
Research Assistant
Grace Yee
Research Assistant
Grace Yee is a second year majoring in Psychology and Legal Studies at UC Berkeley. Her research interests include adolescent development, therapeutic treatment for PTSD and grief, and social justice. In her spare time, she advocates tirelessly for healthcare accessibility with Berkeley’s student government. She plans to attend graduate school for psychology.
- Email:graceyee@berkeley.edu
Elisa Matalon
Research Assistant
Elisa Matalon
Research Assistant
Elisa Matalon is a second-year undergraduate student majoring in Cognitive Science at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests include quantitative sociology, adolescent behavioral health, and the gamification of learning. She hopes to put her experience with at-risk youth and adolescents toward creative solutions to the barriers they face.
- Email:ematalon@berkeley.edu
Lexie Huang
Communications Experience Designer
Lexie Huang
Communications Experience Designer
Lexie Huang is a third-year undergraduate student at the University of California, Berkeley. She is currently pursuing a degree in Business Administration at the Haas School of Business. After graduation she hopes to become a product manager in big tech. She is big on mental health advocacy and have represented the IUSD school district in front of the state in include more funding for K-12 mental health resources.
- Email:kaylex@berkeley.edu
Mason Munoz
Research Assistant
Mason Munoz
Research Assistant
Mason Munoz is a third-year student majoring in Psychology and minoring in Education at the University of California, Berkeley. His research interests include the complex nature of hallucinations, as well as the intersection of prosocial education and cognitive development in children. In his spare time, he advocates for mental health by bringing dogs onto the Berkeley Campus to uplift the local community.
- Email:mason.munoz@berkeley.edu
Miranda Shen
Research Assistant
Miranda Shen
Research Assistant
Miranda Shen is a senior double majoring in Data Science and Psychology. She applies the interdisciplinary connections of her majors to her undergraduate involvements by connecting data analysis skills to psychology research while pursuing teaching as a Lead Undergraduate Student Instructor for Data 8. Miranda is currently writing her Psychology Honors thesis on a natural language processing analysis of psychedelics self-reports, expanding upon reported subjective effects and discovering links between drug categories.
Antoine Poulet
Research Assistant
Antoine Poulet
Research Assistant
Antoine is a French graduate student, enrolled in UC Berkeley Haas for a year as an exchange with a French Business School. He is very interested by the video game industry, in which he worked for a year as a Market Researcher. He is really interested in using the video game medium to a greater extent than for entertainment, such as helping some social environments.
Alyssa Fu
Research Assistant
Alyssa Fu
Research Assistant
Alyssa Fu is a third-year student double-majoring in Business Administration and Legal Studies at University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests include the impact of law on society, racial justice, & the use of the arts to further prosocial youth development. After graduation, she hopes to apply for either law school or an MBA. She is passionate about combining her creative interests with research to find innovative solutions to conventional problems.
- Email:alyssafu@berkeley.edu
Kamran Ostrum
Research Assistant
Kamran Ostrum
Research Assistant
Kamran Ostrum is a third-year student double-majoring in Society & Environment and Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. His research interests include environmental and climate justice, political sociology, and utilizing policy-relevant research to improve outcomes for at-risk communities, specifically youth. He is passionate about addressing the climate crisis through technology and policy, as well as issues related to mental health for adolescents, teens, and unhoused populations.
Affiliates
Mary-Lynn Garrett
Clinical Social Worker
Mary-Lynn Garrett
Clinical Social Worker
Mary-Lynn Garrett is a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) and lead trainer on the Interventions Project at the University of California Berkeley. She obtained her Master's in Social Work with Community Mental Health focus from UC Berkeley's School of Social Welfare. She has two decades of experience working with adults with mental illness and severe medical and psycho-social needs in San Francisco. She makes use of her previous training in mental health treatment within the framework of the Cognitive Behavioral Interventions Core Curriculum (CBI-CC) designed by the University of Cincinnati Corrections Institute. She is certified as lead trainer of CBI-CC, provides training and consultation to the facilitators for the San Francisco site of the Interventions Project and coordinates all the groups delivered there. She also serves as the lead facilitator providing CBI-CC group sessions in San Francisco not only in community settings, but also the county jail. Ms. Garrett focuses her training and group facilitation to maintain strong alignment with the risk-need-responsivity-fidelity principle and with primary focus on addressing criminogenic factors among the group participants.
- Email:mlgarrett@berkeley.edu
Stephania Hayes
Stephania Hayes is a PhD Candidate at the School of Social Welfare. Her dissertation focuses on job-related stress and associated consequences experienced by peer support specialists employed in mental health organizations, including how such stress is affected by training or workplace conditions. Stephania brings to the lab her experience in mental health program administration (with special interests in innovation and evaluation), clinical assessment, and “big data” management. Her recent work synthesized several administrative databases from the state of Victoria, Australia to help examine the utility of outpatient civil commitment in their population of mental health service users over twelve years. Stephania holds a BA in Health Science from the University of Florida, an MA in Occupational Therapy from the University of Southern California, and certification as a Peer Support Specialist.
- Email:stephania@berkeley.edu
Past Team Members
Orly Bell
Orly Bell received her B.A. in Psychology from UC Berkeley in 2014. While completing her degree, Orly worked as a research assistant under Dr.'s Ron Dahl and Silvia Bunge investigating the relationship between sleep, puberty and risk taking behavior. Orly loves working with children of all ages and is particularly interested in the changes that occur throughout development. As a lab manager, Orly is responsible for overseeing all administrative tasks related to research projects and for training research assistants. She is also a lab manager for Dr. Ron Dahl's Youth Development Lab. Through her work with Dr. Dahl and Dr. Skeem she has realized that she wants to learn more about how to translate research into policy and practice. Orly is starting medical school in the fall and hopes to work in pediatrics, and she hopes to learn how to help translate science into clinical practice so that she can implement it in her practice
Nidhi Chandra
Nidhi supported various projects within the lab. She obtained her Master's in Social Welfare from UC Berkeley with a concentration in Specializing in Children, Youth and Family. She graduated from UC Berkeley with a BA in Psychology and Social Welfare, and a minor in Disability Studies. Her previous research includes working on the PRISM and Interventions projects, and she is passionate about research that evaluates supports for youth and adults with severe mental or cognitive impairments and their intersection with the legal system.
Leah Jacobs
Leah Jacobs is a Ph.D. Candidate in Social Welfare. Leah’s scholarship traces the way in which sociostructural factors increase or decrease marginality among individuals labeled as “mentally ill.” Her dissertation investigates the degree to which spatial signifiers of social disadvantage explain enhanced risk of recidivism. Leah holds a B.S. in psychology from Northeastern University, an M.A. in Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning/Child Development from Tufts University, and an M.S.W. from UC Berkeley.
Jaclyn Chambers
Jaclyn Chambers is a doctoral student at the School of Social Welfare. Her research interests center on the intersection of social work and the legal system, with a particular emphasis on crossover youth who are dually involved in both the juvenile justice and child welfare systems. Prior to beginning her doctoral studies, Jaclyn was a research coordinator for several randomized controlled trials focused on substance abuse prevention and intervention. She holds a B.A. from Colgate University and an M.S.W. from New York University.
Amanda Sadri
Survey Researcher
Amanda Sadri
Survey Researcher
Amanda Sadri is the Project Coordinator for the PRISM Study, where she is studying the problem of violence in closed forensic units at Napa State Hospital. Her research interests are the development of psychopathy and offending behavior, and particularly violence risk assessments and risk-reducing interventions.
- Email:asadri07@berkeley.edu