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Lab members

Current

  • Christyn Dolbier (she/her/hers) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at ECU. She is originally from Gainesville, Florida, and her education and training took her across the country before coming back to the southeast and settling down in Greenville in 2003. She earned a BS from Eckerd College, MS from the University of Florida, PhD from the University of Texas at Austin, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California at San Francisco. She is a health psychologist specializing in stress reduction interventions and biopsychosocial pathways between stress and health. She teaches, advises, and mentors psychology graduate and undergraduate students, and conducts research on mindfulness and mindfulness-based programs and stress and its relationship to health. In her free time, Christyn enjoys spending time with family, being outdoors in nature, and reading.

  • Alia Simon (she/her/hers) is a fourth-year clinical health psychology graduate student at ECU. She is originally from New Jersey and earned her BA from the University of Tampa. She received her MA here at East Carolina University. Her research interests include stress management, resilience, mental health, interoceptive awareness, and mindfulness interventions. Alia recently defended her master’s thesis, which investigated relationships among cumulative life stress, interoceptive dysregulation, and psychopathological presentations among emerging adults. Outside of school, she values spending time with family and friends, doing pottery, traveling to new places and taking nature walks.
  • Kelsey Dietrich (she/her) is a second-year graduate student in the clinical health psychology doctoral program at ECU. She is from Port Clinton, OH. Kelsey earned her BA in English and Psychology from Bowling Green State University and MA in Psychological Sciences (clinical-counseling track) from the University of Minnesota Duluth where she was Research Team Coordinator for the Mind-Body Trauma Care Lab with a thesis about 1-1 trauma-sensitive yoga. Her research interests include integrative health care, trauma-informed mind-body interventions, and coping with chronic health conditions. Kelsey enjoys reading, guiding yoga classes, and playing with her puppy, Leo.
  • Maeve Schumacher (she/her/hers) is a first-year graduate student in ECU’s clinical health psychology doctoral program. She grew up in Chicago, and since then has slowly made her way down the east coast: once she earned a BS in Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience from Villanova University, she worked as a clinical research assistant at the Johns Hopkins Schizophrenia Center before moving to Greenville for graduate school. Maeve’s research interests broadly involve mindfulness-based methods of stress reduction, with an emphasis on modifying mindfulness intervention protocols to best suit the needs of diverse social, demographic, and clinical groups. In her free time, Maeve loves to read, work out, watch Villanova basketball, and visit local coffee shops.
  • Aaliyah Buford (she/her) is a senior at ECU pursing a BA in Psychology with a minor in Military Science. Her research interests include stress and coping, mental health, and well-being. She plans to pursue a PsyD upon graduation in hopes of becoming a clinical psychologist in the U.S. Army. She is a part of many organizations on campus, including the Psychology Club. She enjoys spending time hanging out with friends, hiking, traveling and working out. 
  • Benjamin Shaw is a 22-year-old undergraduate Psychology researcher from Fuquay-Varina, dual minoring in Sociology and Biology. He is interested in pursuing a career in sex therapy in service to the LGBTQ community. He hopes his contribution to the Mindfulness-Based Program Adaptation project will improve mindfulness-based programs, and make them more accessible to a wider demographic of people. He believes in the transformative power mindfulness-based therapy holds, and its potential to improve the quality of life for a wide variety of people. In his spare time he writes, is an avid collector of vinyl, and enjoys hiking.
  • Hey! My name is Kaylee Meer and I am currently a junior in ECU’s Honors College. I am majoring in Neuroscience and have a minor in Psychology. When I graduate, I want to earn my master’s and own my own biofeedback therapy clinic. In my free time I love to go outside, cook, paint, workout, and spend time with my loved ones.

Previous doctoral students

  • Sarah Vanacore, Ph.D., postdoctoral fellow in clinical psychology, Center for the Treatment and Study of Anxiety, University of Pennsylvania
  • Lauren Conder, Ph.D., clinical health psychologist, primary care-mental health integration, Veterans Affairs Salisbury Health Care System
  • Erin Haley, Ph.D., postdoctoral fellow in health psychology, Henry Ford Health System
  • Meghan Sharp, Ph.D., clinical psychologist and research scientist at the Women’s Medicine Collaborative, clinical assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Brown University, https://vivo.brown.edu/display/msharp6
  • Taylor Rush, Ph.D., clinical health psychologist, Department of Neuro-Restoration, Cleveland Clinic, https://my.clevelandclinic.org/staff/20069-taylor-rush