BUILD Lab
Biosocial Underpinnings in Learning & Development
Our lab could not function effectively without the contributions of undergraduate and Post-Bac Research Assistants from Emory, Atlanta, and the SURE, SIRE and BRAIN program initiatives. Pictured above is part of our research team from the fall of 2023.
People in the Lab
Patricia Brennan, Ph.D.
Patricia A. Brennan, Ph.D. is a Professor of Psychology at Emory University and a member of the Clinical Psychology Program. She received her BS in Psychology from UMASS Amherst, and her MA and Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Southern California. Professor Brennan has been the PI or Co-I on several large scale, NIH funded longitudinal studies that have examined stress as well as perinatal and familial risk factors in association with children's cognitive development, emotional reactivity,
sleep function, psychopathology and physical health outcomes. She has a passion for multidisciplinary scientific efforts, mentoring, and teaching. Away from the office she enjoys walking the Atlanta Beltline, as well as exploring local markets, craft fairs, and festivals.
Julie Carroll, M.S.W.
Julie Carroll, M.S.W, is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) and the Research Projects Manager for the BUILD laboratory. Julie's research interests include perinatal factors related to maternal and child health, including mood disorders, prenatal teratogenic drug exposure, and stress. Currently, she manages the NIMH-funded study on the gut-brain axis in African American infants. Prior to working in the BUILD lab, she worked as a clinician in high-risk prenatal clinics, labor and delivery units, and neo-natal intensive care units at hospitals in northern California.
She has also coordinated school-age research studies at the Marcus Autism Center. She earned a Master of Social Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley with a concentration in Health.
ECHO Study Research Team
Anne Dunlop, MD, MPH
Dr. Dunlop is a public health oriented family physician whose work focuses on understanding and addressing factors that drive racial/ethnic disparities in pregnancy and birth outcomes in the United States. She has over sixteen years of experience in clinical and epidemiologic assessments of preterm birth and pregnancy and child health outcomes among African American mother-child dyads.
During the last four years, she has led the Emory evaluation team for the Taking Care of You initiative and prior to that led the Promising Approaches for Reducing Infant Mortality Initiative. Her on-going and past research and evaluation work has focused on defining women’s preconception and interconception health care, integrating preconception and primary health care, health policy approaches for improving the receipt of evidence-based care among disadvantaged populations, and understanding biobehavioral factors that shape the woman’s pregnancy microbiome and its impact on risks for sexually transmitted infection, preterm birth, and other adverse pregnancy outcomes.
Brittany Mitchell, B.S.
Brittany Mitchell is a clinical research coordinator and is part of the Atlanta ECHO Study. She is currently a student at Western Governors University for Bachelor of Science in Health and Human Services. Brittany is new to research, however she has over five years working with pediatric population in an ambulatory setting. She utilized her clinical experience to performed phlebotomy on research participant as well as sample processing and organizing. Brittany is certified as a Certified Clinical Medical Assistant (CCMA) and Certified Phlebotomy Technician (CPT).
She was born deaf and currently wears a cochlear implant in one ear and a hearing aid in the other. She is interested in children who are diagnosed with autism, and who are a cochlear implant recipient. She wants to study how cochlear implant may cause auditory hypersensitivity on a child who has autism when they wear their cochlear implant(s). During her free time, Brittany is either at home with her five cats and partner eating vegan ice cream or outside trapping and saving the neighborhood feral cats.
Michelle Buhr, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Dr. Michelle Buhr is the Research Projects Manager for the ECHO laboratory. Dr. Buhr currently manages our Atlanta cohort of the Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) study, which aims to understand the effects of a broad range of early environmental influences on child health and development. She received her BS in Biology from Valdosta State University and her MPH and Ph.D. in Epidemiology from the University of Georgia. Her previous work at the University of Georgia focused on risk factors,
long-term impacts, and clinical decision making surrounding respiratory diseases. She is additionally interested in investigating neighborhood-level exposure impacts on child physical health outcomes.
Marvellous Wells, M.P.H.
Marvellous holds the position of Senior Public Health Program Associate within the Atlanta ECHO Study. She earned her Master of Public Health, with a concentration in Health Promotion and Behavior, alongside two Graduate Certificates in Public Health and Maternal & Child Health, from Georgia State University in 2023. Marvellous attained a Bachelor of Science in Biology Pre-Medicine with a minor in Sociology from Valdosta State University in 2020.
Marvellous has over four years of research experience,
encompassing diverse responsibilities such as data collection, data and project management, administration of maternal & child health assessments, participant recruitment, and interviewing, and more. Her interests focus on enhancing physical activity among pregnant women to mitigate the risk of gestational diabetes and hypertensive disorders, as well as improving access to healthcare and resources for socioeconomically disadvantaged African American women. Furthermore, she is committed to addressing postpartum depression and enhancing the quality of life for children and young adults with autism spectrum disorders.In her leisure time, Marvellous enjoys traveling, bodybuilding, running 5k races, ballet, cooking, community service, and ongoing personal development as a lifelong learner.
Anissa Hernandez, B.A.
Anissa Hernandez joined the Atlanta ECHO Study in 2019 as a Senior Research Interviewer, and is now a Lead Research Specialist. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology with a minor in Women’s Gender Studies in 2017. Anissa is currently pursuing her Master’s of Social Work degree at Georgia State University while working for ECHO full time. She is interested in maternal mental health, PTSD in women of color and LGBTQ+ youth, and risk factors for domestic violence in Latinx communities. Once she graduates, her
ultimate goal is to become a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and serve a diverse community of clients, including those who speak Spanish. In her spare time, she loves cooking, walking the beltline with her boyfriend and sweet Goldendoodle, and candlemaking.
Graduate Students
Jocelyn Stanfield, M.A.
Jocelyn is a fourth year graduate student in the Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program at Emory University. She graduated with a B.A. in Psychology from Emory in 2020. Jocelyn then joined Dr. Laura Stroud’s lab at Brown University. There, she continued her research on substance use during pregnancy and examined sociocultural factors that may play a role in this behavior. As a graduate student, Jocelyn seeks to investigate how perinatal adversity influences the mental wellbeing and subsequent behavior of Black women and their
children. She is also a recipient of the 2022 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. In her free time, Jocelyn enjoys long distance running, traveling, and spending time with friends.
Shania Friedman, M.A.
Shania is a third year graduate student in the Clinical Psychology doctoral program at Emory. Originally from New Jersey, she graduated from Rowan University in 2021 with B.A.'s in Psychology and Anthropology. Shania is interesting in understanding the complex interplay between biological (e.g., environmental toxin exposure) and contextual factors (e.g., objective and subjective measures of income) among youth and families in low-income communities and communities of color.
Ultimately, she hopes this research can inform robust treatment protocol, prevention, and policy. Outside of research, she enjoys reading historical fiction, exercising, and exploring Atlanta with her son and husband, also known as the two Joes.
Constance Wilson, B.S.
Constance is a second year graduate student in the Clinical Psychology program at Emory University. She graduated from Georgia State University in 2021 with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology. As an undergraduate in the NIH-funded MARC program, Constance worked in the FEELINGS Lab, researching empathic distress, racial differences in childhood depression, and attributional style. Constance also gained experience as a RBT with children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder before joining the Atlanta ECHO team. She aims to investigate
African American childhood adversity, specifically traumatic experiences, and their impacts. Her career goal is to evaluate and develop effective, culturally specific interventions for the communities that shaped her. In her spare time, Constance enjoys time with family, wellness activities like yoga, and indulging in my love for all things music-related.
Undergraduate Students
**SURE/SOAR/REU student
Hallie Gordon
Molly Hughes
Sheza Merchant
Madeline Proctor
Alina Glass
Rhea Ahuja