Lab Members
Principal Investigator
Catherine Stoodley, DPhil
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Dr. Stoodley is on the Research Faculty of the Developing Brain Institute at Children's National Hospital and is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. Dr. Stoodley is also a Research Associate Professor at American University. She graduated with a BS in Biology from Tufts University where she worked with Prof. Maryanne Wolf. Dr. Stoodley completed her Master's and DPhil in Neuroscience at the University of Oxford with Prof. John Stein, and a post-doctoral fellowship with Prof. Jeremy Schmahmann at Massachusetts General Hospital. The goal of the Stoodley CerCL Lab is to investigate the role of the cerebellum in cognition and cognitive development. The lab uses a variety of experimental techniques, including functional and structural imaging, transcranial direct current stimulation, and lesion-symptom mapping in patient populations.
Doctoral Students
Joe Dust
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Joe graduated with his B.A. in Psychology from the University of Missouri and starting working in research at Washington University in St. Louis. As a research assistant in the Human Connectome Project, Joe scanned over a hundred older adults and children as young as 5 in the MRI. After becoming more interested in the image processing side of MRI, he joined the Washington University Neurodevelopmental Lab (WUNDERLab) as a Neuroimaging Technician, both running MRIs on infants and preterm children at age 10 then preprocessing their structural and diffusion data. He has given several presentations focusing on executive functioning, theory of mind, and how these relate to autistic traits in both clinical and healthy populations. Joe is continuing this effort in the Stoodley lab by incorporating the role of the cerebellum into his research questions. Outside of the lab, he enjoys DJing, playing games, and hanging out with his cat Desi.
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Rebecca Tegiacchi
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Rebecca graduated in 2023 with her B.S. in Neuroscience and Anthropology from Union College in Schenectady, NY. She was an undergraduate research assistant involved in work investigating the role of memory in OCD, as well as the impact of musical expertise on prosody in language production. Rebecca is currently a student in the Behavior, Cognition, and Neuroscience PhD program, with an interest in the impact of pediatric cerebellar lesions on motor and cognitive functions. Outside of the lab Rebcca enjoys playing the flute/piccolo in band and orchestra at AU, knitting, and looking for new coffee shops around DC!
American University Undergraduate Students
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Brooks Baucom
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Sadie-Anne Dusape
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Maneli Paknejad
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Adina Schwartz
Lab Alumni: PhD Students
Laura Rice, PhD
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Before joining the Stoodley lab, Laura earned her BS in Chemical and Biological Engineering from UMBC and served as research coordinator for Dr. John Desmond's Neuroimaging and Modulation Laboratory. She recently completed her PhD in Behavior, Cognition, and Neuroscience and won the 2022 award for Outstanding Scholarship by a Graduate Student. Laura's doctoral dissertation focused on the impact of cerebellar tDCS on social learning and brain activation patterns in neurotypical adults and young adults with autism. In addition to conducting research, Laura enjoys making music, trail running, and teaching yoga. Laura is now a postdoctoral fellow working with Prof. Stewart Mostofsky at the Kennedy Krieger Institute at Johns Hopkins.
Marissa Marko Lee, PhD
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Marissa obtained her B.A. in psychology and minor in cognitive science from Elizabethtown College. She was an undergraduate research assistant investigating synesthesia and working memory. Marissa graduated from the Behavior, Cognition, and Neuroscience Ph.D. program in 2023 and is now a postdoctoral fellow at Tufts University. In the lab, Marissa's work focused on the neural bases of reading fluency. Marissa enjoys reading science fiction and hanging out with her cat, Avocato.
Anila D'Mello, PhD
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Anila D'Mello graduated with a BA in Psychology from Georgetown University in 2012 and her PhD in Behavior, Cognition and Neuroscience from AU in May 2017. While at Georgetown, Anila worked with Dr. Chandan Vaidya on a range of projects, including studying the effects of social reinforcement on probabilistic learning, and examining eye-gaze patterns in children with autism. In her time in the lab, Anila studied the link between the cerebellum and autism. Her dissertation work used a combination of neuromodulation (transcranial direct current stimulation, or tDCS) and fMRI to examine the role of the cerebellum in language processing. Anila won the 2017 Outstanding Scholarship by a Graduate Student Award. Anila started a postdoctoral position at the Gabrieli Lab at MIT in August 2017 and started her own lab at UTSW in August 2022.
Devon Shook, PhD
Devon graduated with a BS in Physics from Carnegie Mellon and defended his PhD investigating the neural correlates of Autism-ADHD comorbidity in Summer 2015. Devon spent two years as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Utrecht working with Dr. Sarah Durston. He completed his training in Clinical Psychology at the University of Hawaii and currently a clinical psychologist at Seattle Children's Hospital.
Lab Alumni 2011-2022
Master's students
Elizabeth Dvorak (Psychology MA 2018)
Analise Roccaforte (Psychology MA 2018)
Darina Chudnovskaya (Quantitative Analysis MS 2017)
Christina Thomas (Psychology MA 2016)
Ashley Brown (Psychology MA)
Dorothea Moore (Psychology MA 2015)
Mollie Swears (Psychology MA 2014)
Janna Guilfoyle (Psychology MA 2014)
Ashley Durham (Psychology MA 2013)
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Undergraduate students
Emily Barnes (Neuroscience BS 2024)
Dana Gawlitzek (Neuroscience BS 2024)
Alexandra Kauffman (Neuroscience BS 2024)
Alexandra Muir (Neuroscience BS 2024)
Honeyeh Younesie (Neuroscience BS 2024)
Marly Rubin (Neuroscience BS 2023)
Sydney Cerveny (Neuroscience BS 2023)
Hope Alex (Public Health BA 2023)
Sarisha Jagasia (Neuroscience BS 2022)
Nicole Loy (Neuroscience BS 2022)
Kyra Lozynskyj (Neuroscience BS 2022)
Cecelia Cropp (Neuroscience BS 2022)
Lily Atunez (Neuroscience BS 2021)
Sheila Carr (Neuroscience BS 2021)
Brian Fu (Neuroscience BS 2021)
​​Jack Mason (Neuroscience BS 2021)
​Alexandra Santoro (Psychology BA 2021)
Hayli Spence (Neuroscience BS 2020)
Alicia Stringham (Neuroscience BS 2020)
Rachel Weger (Neuroscience BS 2019)
Mariam Melkumyan (Neuroscience BS 2019)
Madison Prieto (Neuroscience BS 2019)
Brianne Drury (Neuroscience BS 2018)
Alyssa Lillian (Neuroscience BS 2018)
Stephanie Martin (Neuroscience BS 2018)
Caitlin Barrett (Neuroscience BS 2017)
Sophie Kotik (Neuroscience BS 2017)
Kathryn Rothenhoefer (Psychology BA 2015)
Skye Horner (Psychology BA 2015)
​Paul Mattioli (Computer Science BA)
Heather Mongilio (Psychology BA 2015)
​Alexandra Thompson (Psychology BA 2013)
​Michael Turchetti (Psychology BA 2012)
​Swati Samtani (Biology BA 2013)
Taylor Ellis (Psychology BA 2012)
Edward Sawyer (Psychology BA 2011)
Alexa Desko (Psychology BA 2010)
Naomi Shakredge (Psychology BA 2011)
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Doctoral and Postdoctoral rotations
Masha Stoianova (Behavior, Cognition and Neuroscience 20-21)
Joyce Oates (Behavior, Cognition and Neuroscience PhD 2014)
Brian Rabinowitz (Behavior, Cognition and Neuroscience PhD)