Lugo Lab

Neriah Jones, MPH, is a passionate researcher and advocate for health equity and social justice with over 10 years of experience working in the mental health field. She obtained her undergraduate degree in Health Sciences from Long Island University and more recently earned her Master of Public Health at CUNY Graduate School of Public Health & Health Policy. Before joining the Lugo Lab, Neriah I was involved in program development and education programming for community health centers and community-based organizations throughout New York City. This work focused on helping to connect New Yorkers with limited access, to free mental health resources and mental health care. In her current role as the Senior Project Manager, she assists in the coordination and implementation of research projects to better understand the mechanisms underlying typical development and psychiatric disease in infants and young children. As Neriah continues to grow as a public health professional, she hopes to continue participating in research that seeks to understand harmful health risks in racial and ethnic minoritized communities. Neriah also hopes that this research will help influence evidence-based policies and practices to mitigate health disparities in these communities. 

Alice Aizza graduated from The University of Texas at Austin in 2021 with a BA in Psychology and Sociology. While in undergrad, she was a volunteer RA research assistant at Dr. Jessica A. Church’s Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Lab. She worked on projects looking at bilingual children with reading difficulties, cognitive development of youth with and without control disorders, and summer learning interruption among fourth and seventh graders. Alice is fascinated by brain development and joined the Lugo Lab in January of 2022 to work on the pollution and cannabis studies. She is also fascinated by typical and atypical brain development and environmental influences. She hopes to go to graduate school in the future.

Jaimie Lee is currently a research assistant at the Lugo Lab. She holds a BA in Psychology and in Human Health from Emory University. Prior to joining the Lugo Lab, she was a research aide at the Center for Maternal Substance Abuse and Child Development (MSACD). She was involved in the data collection and entry for multiple projects, primarily the Adult Health Study, which examines the long-term effects of maternal substance use and abuse on the fetus’ neurobehavioral and health outcomes. Jaimie’s research interests lie in how the prenatal environment impacts one’s mental and physical health and how these effects can last throughout the lifespan and across generations. She seeks to bring attention to ethnic and racial minorities, who are often underrepresented in research and science. In addition to her research position, Jaimie volunteers as a Crisis Counselor at Crisis Text Line to bring people in distress to a calmer state and offer emotional support in the conversation through coping skills and resources. She has applied to Clinical Psychology programs for Fall 2023 to become a clinical psychologist involved in both research and clinical work. 

Lin Garih (she/her) is a research volunteer, who is originally from Istanbul, Turkey. She is a senior at NYU, majoring in Psychology and minoring in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Studies. Prior to joining the lab, she interned for a clinical training program at a Psychiatric Hospital in Istanbul where she broadened her understanding about mental health issues that occur across different ages. In the future she hopes to become a licensed therapist. She is passionate about adolescent mental health as well as learning about the development of anxiety disorders. She also has an interest in non-western treatment alternatives for mental health issues and believes that having a culturally sensitive approach to mental health is key for progress in the field. 

Isaac Deitz-Green (he/him) is a research volunteer at the Lugo Lab. Prior to joining the Lugo-Candelas team, he worked for the SPAM lab at NYU, and the Frantz and Darling Labs at Oberlin College where he majored in Psychology with a concentration in Cognitive Sciences (and minors in Literature and Environmental Studies). These research projects explored the impact of sociopolitical attitudes on distance perception, adolescent romantic relationship development, and the social effects of connection to nature. After college, he worked for a few years in digital marketing and political campaigning in Washington, D.C. before making his way back to psychology. His current research interests include ADHD, anxiety and sleep struggles, and he plans to pursue a graduate degree in clinical psychology.

Kay (Zhiqi) Zhang is a senior at Barnard College, where she will receive a BA in psychology in February 2024. Prior to joining the lab, she has volunteered at the Chinese Academy of Scences‘ Key Laboratory of mental health, where she explored key characteristics of mental disorders such as schizophrenia and acute stress disorder. She is now interested in the risk and preventive factors of mental health disorders, taking into account of relevant cultural and environmental influences. In an addition to volunteering at the Lugo lab, Kay is also volunteering at the Cambridge University Development & Learning Lab (CUDL), where she is now working on a cross-cultural project about stereotype development in children. In the future, she plans to study clinical psychology in graduate school and combine clinical practice with mental health counseling.