Students

Kristina Arevalo (she/her/siya)
Cohort: 2021
Email: karevalo@gradcenter.cuny.edu
Website: N/A
Advisor(s): Dr. Yana Kuchirko
Research: Ethnic-racial socialization, discrimination, and colonialism and its relation to identity development in Asian Americans.
Explore Research: K.-Arevalo-Interview-Day-Presentation
Teaching: N/A
Personal: I enjoy watching TV, playing video games, and eating yummy food 🙂

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Julia Moses (she/her)
Cohort: 2021
Email: jmoses3@gradcenter.cuny.edu
Website: https://jmoses197.wixsite.com/juliamosespsych 
Advisor(s): Dr. Jennifer Wagner
Research: Infant social development
Teaching: Not teaching until the spring 2022 semester
Personal: I am a photographer, I love working out, and I love horror movies.

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Amruta Wagh (she/her/hers)
Cohort: 2021
Email: awagh@gradcenter.cuny.edu
Website: http://amrutawagh.com
Advisor(s): Dr. Lana Karasik  
Research: Exploring the multifaceted roles culture and context play in infant social development 
Teaching: Not currently teaching
Personal: I love anything and everything sci-fi. Love starting my day with strength training and ending it with long walks.
I scare myself by watching horror movies and love talking about skincare.

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Jahnavi de Sousa (her/she)
Cohort: 2020
Email: jdesousa@gradcenter.cuny.edu
Website: N/A
Advisor(s):Dr. Yana Kuchirko, Dr. Erika Niwa
Research: Cultural identity in Indian youth
Teaching: Psychology of Gender Brooklyn College
Personal: hiking, playing piano and talking to anything with 4 legs

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Michele Maia (she/her)
Cohort: 2020
Email: mgoncalvesmaia@gradcenter.cuny.edu
Website: N/A
Advisor(s): Dr. Sarah Berger
Research: Interaction between motor and cognitive development in infancy
Teaching: Research assistant at CSI
Personal: love to cook, to listen to people and hangout

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Sham Habteselasse
Cohort: 2020
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Firdevs Gursoy (she/her)
Cohort: 2020
Email: fgursoy@gradcenter.cuny.edu
Website: https://www.linkedin.com/in/firdevs-gursoy-6b115b43/
Advisor(s): Dr. Erika Y. Niwa
Research: My research interests broadly focus on community engagement and ethnic/racial identity development among adolescents and emerging adults.
Teaching: Experimental Psychology (Lab) at Brooklyn College
Personal: I like hiking, finding new coffee shops, and watching black/white movies.

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Ellie Grossman (she/her)
Cohort: 2019
Email: egrossman@gradcenter.cuny.edu
Website: N/A
Advisor: Jennifer Drake
Research: aesthetics and emotions, creative engagement & neurodiversity
Teaching: Statistical Methods in Psychological Research, Brooklyn College
Personal: My parents have a dog named Rosie and she is everything good. (Don’t tell Red, the dog in the picture =) ).

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Tashiya Hunter
Cohort: 2019
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Hasibe Melda Kahraman-Colosky (she/her)
Cohort: 2019
Email: hkahraman@gradcenter.cuny.edu
Website: N/A
Advisor(s): Dr. Lana Karasik & Dr. Anna Stetsenko
Research: Play, learning, culture and social development in infancy and early childhood
Teaching: N/A
Personal: I love baking and knitting in my free time, and I like boxing for fun and exercise. Most of all, I love walking my dog Lulu to Prospect Park and snuggling with her at home!

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Noama Naim (she/her)
Cohort: 2019
Email: Nnaim@gradcenter.cuny.edu
Website: N/A
Advisor(s): Dr. Colette Daiute
Research: Advocacy stance of parents and teachers in marginalized communities.
Teaching: Introduction to Psychology, Personality in Childhood and Adolescence, Adult Developmental Psychology, Research Methods, Developmental Psychology.
Personal: I love road trips, beaches, painting, and reading non-fiction.

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Aaron DeMasi (he/him)
Cohort: 2018
Email: ademasi@gradcenter.cuny.edu
Website: https://csichildlab.wixsite.com/csichildlab
Advisor(s): Dr. Sarah Berger
Research: I study the reciprocal relationship between motor development and sleep over the course of infancy. Infants’ movements exhibit interesting characteristics that may reflect underlying cognitive processes. My other research interests include problem-solving, memory, inhibitory control, and cognitive development.
Explore Research: Poster Presentation
Teaching: PSY 100 – Introduction to Psychology, College of Staten Island
Personal: I enjoy playing guitar and bass as well as gardening.

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Camille Lester Riley
Cohort: 2018
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Saige Stortz
Cohort: 2018
Email: sstortz@gradcenter.cuny.edu
Research: How do people perceive/understand their own and others’ social mobility? My current research explores perceptions of social mobility intersected with ethnicity, gender, immigration status, sexual orientation, etc, and uses critical theory to make sense of people’s perceptions about other people’s social mobility. As a slight side, I also explore how people understand and make sense of the abstract concept of social mobility, and what it means to them. Outside of the social mobility realm, I also ask critically examine the methods we use to conduct research with the goal of putting humanizing, anti-oppressive collectividuals methodology into practice.
Teaching: Brooklyn College CUNY – Statistical Methods (Lab) and Experimental Psychology (Lab); Hunter College CUNY – Human Development
Personal: Love reading (Adult and YA fantasy / Sci-fi), watching tv and movies, video and board games, going for a run or yoga, and in the summer you’ll likely find me picnicking in the park.

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Sapir Soker-Elimaliah (she/her)
Cohort: 2017
Email: selmaliah@gradcenter.cuny.edu
Website: Under construction
Advisor(s): Dr. Jennifer Wagner and Dr. Sarah Berger
Research: My main focus is motor development. I study the underlying physiological mechanisms of restricted interests and repetitive behaviors and sensory processing in autistic and nonautistic children, and I study how the acquisition of new motor milestones interacts with attention and affects problem-solving skills in infants.
Explore Research: Poster Presentation1 Poster Presentation 2
Teaching: PSY100 – Introduction to Psychology, College of Staten Island (not teaching currently)
Personal: I enjoy exercising, and I recently participated in NYC Triathlon. I also enjoy live music, especially heavy metal concerts, and ballet shows.

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Lisa Babel (She/Her)
Cohort: 2017
Email: lbabel@gradcenter.cuny.edu
Website: N/A
Advisor(s): Dr. Colette Daiute
Research: My dissertation is on Kindergarten readiness across socioeconomic status. Currently, I am conducting several studies on global education initiatives, adventure playgrounds, as well as equitable play spaces in urban environments. I specialize in qualitative methods, specifically narrative analysis, with a focus on education policy. Using a sociocultural lens, my areas of interest include universal preschool, academic redshirting, school assessments, and education inequality.
Teaching: At CUNY’s City College, I teach both undergraduate and graduate courses in group dynamics, as well as developmental psychology. I am also a graduate thesis advisor. In addition, I am a Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) fellow at CUNY’s Bronx Community College.
Personal: In my spare time, I like to crochet, read mystery and suspense novels, take kickboxing classes, and go for walks with my cat, Ophelia. I am also developing a podcast.

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Isabella Fante
Cohort: 2016
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Marjorine Castillo (she/her)
Cohort: 2015
Email: Mcastillo@gradcenter.cuny.edu
Website: www.MarjorineHenriquezCastillo.com
Advisor(s): Dr. Erika Y. Niwa and Dr. Martin D. Ruck
Research: Acculturation and mental health among Latinx youth and their families, Intersectionality (race, ethnicity, class, nativity) and how it shapes psychological development
Explore Research: Dissertation Proposal
Teaching: The Psychology of Student Success (City College), The Psychology of Immigration and Acculturation (City College), Child Psychology (Lehman College)
Personal: I love to cook, bake, and do arts and crafts. I like watching educational documentaries and romantic comedies and sharing recipes and memes on social media.

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Henry Love
Cohort: 2015
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Mike Rifino (he/him/his) 
Cohort: 2014
Email: mrifino@gradcenter.cuny.edu 
Website: N/A
Advisor(s): Dr. Anna Stetsenko 
Research: My research focuses on the ethics and politics of emotions, specifically shame and alienation and its implications for learning among students of color in community college. To conceptualize these emotional processes, I rely on the following theoretical frameworks: feminist politics of emotions, black feminist love-politics, and affect theories (e.g., Sara Ahmed, Lauren Berlant, Michalinos Zembylas). Specifically, I am interested in understanding how emotional and affective dynamics of learning are not only constituted through institutional forms of power and oppression, but can also serve as a basis for fostering care, solidarity, and reimgainings of the future among students. Teaching: I teach at LaGuardia Community College and I have taught the following courses: General Psychology, First-Year Seminar in Psychology, and Learning and Education: Childhood to Adolescence.  
Personal: I enjoy hiking, kickboxing, and watching basketball. 

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