Lab Members | Lab Members

Principal Investigator

I received my BS in psychology with honors from Michigan State University. In 2007 I received my PhD. from the University of California, Berkeley in Clinical Psychology. My dissertation, jointly supervised by Drs. Mark D'Esposito and Stephen Hinshaw, focused on the function of the prefrontal cortex in ADHD. Following my clinical internship (Bellevue Hospital/NYU Child study Center), I was a Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholar at Harvard's School of Public Health where I investigated the association between exposure to environments associated with socioeconomic status, stress reactivity, and function of the prefrontal cortex. During my time as an RWJ Scholar I established lasting collaborations with Dr. Charles Nelson (Harvard Medical School) and Dr. John Gabrieli (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). I am currently an Instructor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and the principal investigator in the Sheridan Lab. In addition, I am a visiting scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. My specific interests are in the development of the prefrontal cortex in typical and atypical (ADHD) populations. I use neuroimaging (MRI, fMRI, ERP) and psychophysiology techniques to assess neural function and stress system reactivity. 

For more information, please visit my Faculty Page.

POST DOCTORAL RESEARCHERS

Maria Kharitonova, PhD (contact Maria)

I received my PhD in Psychology & Neuroscience from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where I worked with Drs. Yuko Munakata and Tim Curran. In graduate school I worked on studies examining the relationship between individual differences in executive functions (particularly, working memory and cognitive flexibility) and related processes, such as abstract reasoning (in children) and filtering-task-irrelevant information (in children and in adults). I used behavioral, computational, and electrophysiological methods to examine these issues. In the Sheridan Lab I look forward to extending my work to understanding the function of working memory and filtering task-irrelevant information in children with ADHD using fMRI.

Carmel Salhi, ScD (contact Carmel)

I received my ScD in Global Health and Population, with sub-concentrations in Psychiatric Epidemiology and Anthropology, from the Harvard School of Public Health.  My dissertation focused on the role of family for the mental health of Arab children affected by political conflict, bringing together ethnographic fieldwork with Iraqi refugees resettled in Worcester and analysis of a large-scale survey conducted in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.  In the Sheridan lab, my work focuses on the potential cognitive and physiological mechanisms underlying the relationship between social and economic adversity and children’s mental health.  I look forward to bringing together the different disciplinary perspectives of public health and cognitive neuroscience in future research.

LAB COORDINATORS

Matthew Peverill (contact Matt)

I graduated from Amherst College in 2007 with a BA in Psychology. After several years working in healthcare technology at a community health center I joined the lab as a volunteer working with our analysis tools in October of 2012. In my current role as a lab coordinator I’m most involved in the collection and analysis of fMRI data for our studies on ADHD in children and emotion regulation and working memory in adolescents. I am very interested in how social privilege affects mental health treatment and outcomes, particularly during childhood and adolescence. In the future I hope to pursue a doctorate in Clinical Psychology.

Rosario Santillana (contact Rosario)

I graduated from Harvard College in 2013 with a B.A in Neurobiology and a minor in Global Health and Health Policy. I joined the Sheridan Lab in June of 2012 as a research assistant for our longitudinal ADHD study, which investigates how neuroimaging can improve the accuracy of an ADHD diagnosis. Currently I am a lab coordinator for Dr. Sheridan and am involved in both our longitudinal study as well as a recent study interested in finding out if playing a computer game will help improve the executive function of children with ADHD.  I am particularly interested in how environmental factors influence brain development in young children and how minority status influences treatment decisions. In the future, I plan to apply to medical school and hope to continue working with children. 

RESEARCH ASSISTANTS

Jenna Snyder (contact Jenna)

I’m a senior at Northeastern University graduating with a BS in Behavioral Neuroscience in December. I joined the Sheridan Lab in July of 2012 as a research assistant. I work mainly on our longitudinal ADHD study researching neural markers of the transition from risk of ADHD in young children to a stable diagnosis of ADHD in later childhood. After graduating, I plan to continue work in research and healthcare for a few years before going back to school to pursue a career in medicine. 

Marcus Way (contact Marcus)

I graduated from Harvard University in 2012 with a bachelor's degree in neurobiology, and I have been at the lab since then. I have worked mostly on the FOCUS study, which aims to discover a more reliable paradigm for ADHD diagnosis in young children using EEG. Specifically, I am trying to use different signal processing techniques and machine learning to distinguish EEG signals of children with an ADHD diagnosis from those without.

Graduate Students

Daniel Busso (contact Daniel)

I hold a BSc in Psychology from the University of Bath, and an MSc in Cognitive Science from University College London. I am currently a third-year doctoral student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where my core interest is to understand how early adversity compromises neural circuits that support cognition, emotion and learning. Specifically, I'm interested in whether differences in brain structure and function may represent a latent risk for psychopathology in adolescence and beyond. To address this question for my dissertation research, I'll be conducting a longitudinal follow-up with participants involved with the Adolescent Stress and Coping Study.

Ava Floyd (contact Ava)

I am currently a second year Master's student at Boston College. My primary focus is towards developing executive function skills in children from low-income households. I joined the Sheridan Lab as intern learning about The Mind Matters early childhood with an emphasis on intervention methods and ways children can develop stronger executive functioning skills including self-regulation. Before joining the Sheridan Lab, I worked for NYU's Tools of the Mind administering cognitive tests to kindergarteners with a follow-up into first grade examining phonological awareness, reading comprehension, writing skills, and delay of gratification. I plan to work for a couple of years in research and will consider applying to doctoral programs focusing on child cognitive development.

UNDERGRADUATES

Christina Herbosa (contact Christina)

I am a junior at Harvard College concentrating in Neurobiology with a secondary field in Global Health and Health Policy. I am interested in pediatric and developmental neuroscience, specifically the processes that underlie cognitive development crucial for learning. As a research assistant in the Sheridan Lab, I currently assist with data collection and entry for the COGTRAIN study. After graduation, I hope to pursue a career in education and/or medicine. 

Leila Shayegan (contact Leila)

I am a senior at Harvard University concentrating in Neurobiology and pursuing a secondary field in Mathematics. I am fascinated by both the behavioral and neurological aspects of working memory and cognitive control in developmental disorders like ADHD, and I seek to learn more about their bases and consequences in children with ADHD. I currently assist in EEG data collection for the cognitive training and longitudinal ADHD study. Prior to joining the Sheridan Lab, I worked in the Schlagenhauf Lab at the Charité Hospital in Berlin studying the neural mechanisms underlying working memory deficits in schizophrenia. After graduation, I plan to attend medical school. 

Nina Sokolovic (contact Nina)

I am a senior at Harvard University concentrating in Neurobiology with a focus in Mind, Brain, and Behaviour.  As a research assistant, I am interested in studying how early environmental experiences related to socioeconomic status and stress affect neurodevelopment and ultimately lead to differences in behavioral, educational, and health outcomes. Upon graduation, I hope to continue studying early child development by pursuing a degree in Public Health with a focus on Maternal and Child Health. 

COLLABORATORS

John Gabrieli (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

Charles Nelson (Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School)

Katie McLaughlin (University of Washington)

Chris Blattman (Yale University)

Julian Jamison (Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and Yale University)

GRADUATES

Sonia Alves

Warren Winter

Matthew Coates

Kelly Kehm

Gabriella Anderson

Molly Bloom

Rebecca Martin

Matt Miller

Katrina Bridgman

Arparna Chatterjee

Joan How

Amy Finn

Elise Kang

Nele Schulze

Juan Munoz

Meredith Gabriel

Faisal Kirdar