Director
Amy Janes, PhD
Amy.janes@nih.gov
Amy Janes, Ph.D., is an investigator at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Intramural Research Program (IRP). Prior to joining NIDA, Dr. Janes spent 15 years at Harvard Medical School’s McLean Hospital where she was an Associate Professor of Psychiatry. In 2007, Dr. Janes received her Ph.D. in Psychology from Boston University where her research focused on preclinical models of cocaine dependence. Dr. Janes currently uses multi-modal neuroimaging techniques in clinical populations to study addiction, with a specific focus on nicotine dependence. Dr. Janes’ research interests include: identifying individual vulnerabilities for developing and maintaining addictive disorders, evaluating brain changes following treatment, and determining how other cognitive, affective, and psychiatric disorders contribute to addiction.
Current Lab Members
Kathryn Biernacki
Kathryn Biernacki, PhD, is a research fellow at NIDA-IRP. Dr. Biernacki completed her PhD in Psychology at Australian Catholic University in Melbourne, Australia and a post-doc at Rutgers University in New Jersey. Kathryn is a Research Fellow at NIDA and her research examines the role of decision-making and reward in substance use disorder, with a focus on developing neuroscience-based treatments and measuring their neural impact using a range of methodologies (including MRI, TMS, EEG and computational modelling).
Laura Murray
Laura Murray, PhD, completed her PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Michigan and her internship at Alpert Medical School at Brown University. Her research examines the role of reward processing in the development and persistence of externalizing psychopathology (e.g., antisocial behavior, psychopathy, substance use). Her dissertation investigated the relationships between components of antisocial behavior (e.g., callous-unemotional traits, delinquency, and disinhibition) and dysfunctional neural response to reward and punishment in youth at risk for antisocial behavior. Dr. Murray is currently on a NIDA T32 Fellowship in Brain Imaging and Drug Abuse at McLean, where she is using multimodal neuroimaging techniques (e.g., connectivity and task-related functional neuroimaging) to investigate the roles of reward processing and executive functioning in the development of problematic substance use and co-occurring internalizing and externalizing psychopathology
Timothy Wanger
Tim Wanger, Ph.D. is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan and a recent graduate of the NIDA T32 for Brain Imaging and Drug Abuse at McLean Hospital. He continues to collaborate with the lab and uses neuroimaging to study the role of cognition and emotion-related brain regions in the development and maintenance of substance use disorders. Dr. Wanger is interested in utilizing advanced neuroimaging tools to understand how altered activity within individual brain regions and among networks contributes to behaviors observed in addicted populations.
Annika Quam
Annika is a post bac at NIDA from Eden Prairie, MN. She graduated from Vanderbilt University in 2022 with a B.A. in Psychology and Medicine, Health, & Society. Annika is currently working on a study at NIDA analyzing orexin’s role in the neurobiology of substance use disorders. She hopes to pursue a PhD in Clinical Psychology exploring the intersection of neuropsychology, trauma, and resilience.
Julia Welsh
Julia is currently an undergraduate researcher at Harvard College and will be joining the lab at NIDA in the summer of 2023.
Former Lab Members
Julie McCarthy
While in the lab, Julie McCarthy, Ph.D. was a NIDA T32 Trainee at McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Dr. McCarthy graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park Clinical Psychology Ph.D. program in 2016 after completing her clinical internship at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School. She is interested in using behavioral and multi-modal neuroimaging techniques to study factors, including motivation, anhedonia, and social affiliation, associated with treatment engagement and recovery outcomes in individuals with psychotic and substance use disorders. Dr. McCarthy is currently an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School where she is focused on treating those with substance use and schizophrenia.
Elena Molokotos
Elena was a graduate student in Suffolk University’s Clinical Psychology doctoral program working. She graduated from the University of Vermont with a B.A. in psychology followed by an M.A. in Psychology from Boston University. Her research interests include understanding individual variability in behavioral and neurobiological responses to rewards, decision-making processes, and the implications of these for treating different psychiatric disorders. Her dissertation focused on the relationship between behavioral responding to rewards in nicotine-dependent individuals and their ability to remain abstinent from smoking in exchange for monetary rewards. Dr. Molokotos successfully defended her dissertation based on work in the lab and she is now in private practice.
Bretta Beer
Bretta graduated with her B.S. in Neuroscience and a minor in German from Union College in 2018 and spent the following year in Germany as a young United States Ambassador. She was a research assistant in the lab until for two years.
Kaelyn Brown
Kainan (Sally) Wang
Kainan (Sally) Wang graduated with her B.A. in Biology-Neuroscience and French from Washington University in St. Louis in 2012 and her Ph.D. in Behavioral and Neural Sciences from Rutgers University in 2019. Her primary interests include using behavioral and neuroimaging tools to study how changes in the reward-processing neural circuit can drive maladaptive behaviors in different patient populations, particularly those afflicted with substance dependence.
Nate Krantz
Nate graduated with his B.A. in Clinical Psychology from Tufts University in 2018 and is currently a research assistant in the FIARL. He hopes to pursue a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology or related field after his time at FIARL with a focus on mental illness and its relation to substance abuse disorders.
Alyssa Peechatka
Alyssa Peechatka graduated with her B.S. in Psychology from Penn State University in 2012 and completed her Ph.D. program at Suffolk University in 2018. She was a graduate student and postdoctoral fellow in the FIARL lab and she also completed her clinical internship at McLean Hospital. She now serves as a Senior Research Scientist at Mightier.
miranda fry
Miranda is an undergraduate at Wellesley College majoring in Neuroscience and currently works as a research intern in the FIARL. She hopes to pursue graduate studies exploring the neurological and psychological intersections of childhood trauma, abuse, addiction and/or other adverse factors on developing mental health.
Kelly Dumais
Kelly Dumais, Ph.D., was a is a National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) T32 Fellow in FIARL, where she investigated the neurobiological mechanisms underlying sex-specific difference in addictive disorders. She now serves as a scientific advisor at ERT: Clinical Trial Technology Solutions.
Maya Zegel
Maya Zegel graduated with her B.A. in Psychology from Boston University in 2016 and is currently a research assistant in the FIARL. She is pursuing a PhD. in Clinical Psychology at the University of Houston to study the treatment of comorbid trauma and substance use disorders.
Jen Betts
Jennifer Betts graduated with her B.S. in Psychology from Tufts University in 2014 and was a research assistant in the FIARL. She is currently a graduate student in the Smoking Research Lab at the University at Buffalo, SUNY.
Stacey Farmer
Stacey Farmer graduated with her B.A. in Psychology from the University of Albany and was a research assistant in the FIARL. Stacey is currently a graduate student in the Habits and Lifestyles Lab at the University of Albany and will be doing her clinical internship at the Boston VA.