Angela Fang, Ph.D.
Lab Director
Dr. Fang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Washington. She received her A.B. in Psychological and Brain Studies from Dartmouth College in 2007, and her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Boston University in 2014. After completing her predoctoral clinical internship and postdoctoral fellowship at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, she continued on as faculty and as a licensed clinical psychologist in the Department of Psychiatry OCD and Related Disorders Program. As Director of the Center of Neuroscience, Neuroendocrinology, & Clinical Translation (CoNNeCTLab), Dr. Fang is focused on understanding the brain and psychological mechanisms underlying social and emotional processing in anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorders using an array of techniques including neuroimaging, neuroendocrine assays, pharmacology, and behavioral/self-report assessment. In particular, she is interested in aspects of social cognition (e.g., emotion perception, self-focused attention, and prospection) that go awry in psychiatric disorders, and translating knowledge of the neuroscience and psychology of these processes to inform clinical applications.
Office: Kincaid 445 | Email: angfang@uw.edu | CV
Nathan Sackett, M.D., M.S.
Psychiatrist
Dr. Sackett is an addiction psychiatrist and Acting Assistant Professor in the University of Washington Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences. Clinically, he works with patients who struggle with both primary psychiatric disorders and substance use disorders primarily in a busy academic outpatient clinic. Nathan is also the co-director of the Center for Novel Therapeutics in Addiction Psychiatry, a translational research center focusing on examining psychedelics as augmenting agents of behavioral interventions to treat addiction. Nathan is the Principal Investigator of a Washington-state funded clinical trial exploring the use of psilocybin in high-risk patient populations.
Yuchen Zhao
Graduate Student in Clinical Psychology
Office: Kincaid 447 | Email: yczhao@uw.edu
Emily Iannazzi
Graduate Student in Clinical Psychology
Emily is a third-year Ph.D. student in the Adult Clinical Psychology program at the University of Washington. She received her B.A. in Psychology with a Clinical Concentration from Boston College, where she researched memory and emotion, conducting her senior honors thesis on retrieval-induced forgetting with autobiographical, negative memories. As an undergraduate, Emily also worked for St. Vincent’s Health Partners where she helped monitor patient risk and treatment using EHRs. She then moved on to Harvard University where she worked in the Buckner Laboratory, gaining extensive experience with functional and structural neuroimaging and learning about brain network connectivity, neuropsychiatric dysfunction, and actigraphy data. At Harvard, she also worked in the Affective Neuroscience and Development Lab on the Human Connectome Project in Development. Her PhD interests include adversity and trauma, in particular using a multifaceted and interdisciplinary approach at the individual level to better understand stress, anxiety, and fear. In her free time, Emily enjoys being around animals, drawing, playing board games, and knitting/crocheting.
Office: Kincaid 447 | Email: eiann@uw.edu
Gillian Grennan
Graduate Student in Neuroscience
Gillian is a third-year PhD student in the Graduate Program for Neuroscience at the University of Washington. She received her B.Sc. in Cognitive Science with an emphasis in Behavioral Neuroscience from the University of California, San Diego. Here, she joined the Neural Engineering and Translational Lab (NEATLabs) where she utilized EEG in concert with cognitive behavioral assessments to uncover neural correlates of psychiatric diseases. Specifically, she focused on mechanisms of aversive behaviors that could be translated into treatments for depression, anxiety, and PTSD. Her current PhD interests focus on combining neuroimaging techniques (specifically fMRI) with psychometric modeling (such as through drift diffusion modeling, and dynamic causal modeling) and cognitive modeling (such as the cognitive architecture ACT-R) to assess underlying neurobiological differences of social anxiety versus healthy controls during social fear learning with the goal of eventually improving the efficacy of current psychiatric treatments. On the weekends and after work you can find her hiking, camping, playing volleyball, or running around the many parks in Seattle!
Office: Kincaid 447 | Email: gillkg@uw.edu
Maggie Sarkisova
Research Coordinator
Maggie recently graduated from the University of Washington with a B.S in Psychology. She has had a variety of experiences ranging from research to clinical. Her main interests in the field of psychology include child and adolescent development, anxiety disorders, and autism spectrum disorder. She enjoys working with children and hopes in the future to provide more support and continue research on optimal therapies for children. As a research coordinator at the CoNNeCTLab she hopes to grow as a researcher that can help her reach her goal of achieving a Ph.D. in Developmental or Clinical Psychology. In her free time, Maggie enjoys taking care of her plants, cooking some fun new recipes, and loves a good thrifting adventure with her friends.
Office: Kincaid 444 | Email: msark@uw.edu
Kavin Srinakarin (Ken)
Undergraduate Honors Student
Ken is an Honors Research Undergraduate at the University of Washington, majoring in Psychology with a minor in Education. His research is primarily focused on improving mental health care for marginalized and underrepresented communities, with a keen interest in the impact of individual differences such as race, gender, and mental health history on social learning and clinical disorders. His research interests dovetail nicely with a larger translational study in the lab, which examines vicarious fear extinction learning in patients with social anxiety disorder. His honors thesis delves into the intersection of gender categorization and anxiety. Outside of research, Ken maintains a Vice President position at Psychology at UW, facilitating a mentorship program and cultivating community-based support among students with shared identities and career aspirations. Post-graduation, he aims to pursue a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology. Beyond academia, Ken harbors a deep passion for filmmaking and theatre.
Office: Kincaid 444 | Email: kavins@uw.edu
Catherine Zhang
Undergraduate Honors Student
Catherine is a junior honors student pursuing a B.A. Psychology major and a mathematics minor at the University of Washington. Her interest centers around the intersection of mathematics and psychological concepts, particularly within a clinical context. She enjoys the process of learning and developing computational skills that could support interpretation of complex neural processes such as learning and decision making. Also, she is drawn to using mathematical analysis to gain insights into clinical conditions and potentially advance interventions and treatments. After graduation, she aims to pursue a clinical PhD and continue her studies on computational applications to clinical research with a goal to improve challenges within clinical populations. In her free time, Catherine enjoys going to concerts, shooting film photography, and cooking Shanghai dishes!
Office: Kincaid 444 | Email: cathez@uw.edu
Morgan Opdahl
Undergraduate Honors Student
Morgan is a junior double majoring in Neuroscience and Psychology, where he finds fulfillment in exploring the intersectionality of these fields. His preeminent interest lies in improving the quality of life among individuals facing mental health challenges. In light of this, he seeks to use neuroscience to elucidate the underpinning mechanisms of psychopathologies and their treatments. Within CoNNeCT, he seeks to better his understanding of neuroscientific tools (such as EEG, fMRI, ect.) and their applications in studying outcomes for individuals with BDD and SAD. Upon graduation he plans to continue his research by pursuing a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology. For fun, Morgan loves hanging out with his cats, listening to music, and trying new restaurants and recipes with friends.
Office: Kincaid 444 | Email: morganic@uw.edu
Cecilia Mustelin
Research Assistant Volunteer
Cecilia Mustelin graduated from the Honors Psychology program at the University of Washington in 2022, and she is excited to continue studying cognitive neuroscience and its clinical applications. Her research interests mainly revolve around resting state functional connectivity and how it relates to various psychopathologies. When she’s not too busy reading about the brain and enthusing about the default mode network to her friends and family, you can most likely find her out in nature foraging for mushrooms!
Office: Kincaid 444 | Email: cm2334@uw.edu
ALUMNI
Jessica Crane, Research Coordinator
Nikita Nerkar, Undergraduate Honors Student
Isabel Flynn, Undergraduate Research Assistant
Serenity Greene, Visiting STAR Researcher
Jennifer Mosley, Lab Manager