Graduate Students
Jaime Murtagh (CV) is a fifth-year student in the Clinical Psychology program at Ole Miss. Jaime graduated from Indiana State University in 2018 with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology. He completed his master’s degree at the University of Mississippi in 2020. Jaime’s research interests broadly examine transdiagnostic factors related to posttraumatic stress symptoms and is currently completing his dissertation entitled “Temperamental Fear as a Vulnerability Factor for Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms: An Examination of Fight, Flight, Freeze using a Trauma Film Paradigm.” Over the next year, Jaime will be completing his doctoral internship at the University of Missouri Psychological Consortium where he will be working at the Thompson Center for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders.
Hannah Friedman (CV) is a fourth-year student in the Clinical Psychology program at Ole Miss. Hannah graduated from Emory University in 2019 with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. While at Emory, she conducted her Honors Thesis on the etiology of and etiological overlap among social anxiety, shyness, and extraversion in youth. She completed her M.A. degree at the University of Mississippi in 2021. Hannah’s research interests pertain to understanding the intergenerational transmission of anxiety, the role of parental accommodation in the maintenance of youth anxiety disorders, and cognitive vulnerabilities in the development and maintenance of parent and adolescent anxiety.
Maxwell Luber (CV) is a third-year student in the Clinical Psychology program at Ole Miss. Max graduated from Temple University in 2015 with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. While at Temple University, he was an undergraduate research assistant in the Child and Adolescent Anxiety Disorders Clinic with Dr. Philip Kendall, working on studies that examined long-term outcomes of different types of treatments for childhood anxiety. Before coming to Ole Miss, Max held several post-baccalaureate Research Coordinator positions. At the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, Max worked in two labs: one focusing on the treatment of tics and Tourette’s disorder with Dr. Barbara Coffey and another in MRI research that focused on understanding the underlying risk, disease, expression, and resilience of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder with Dr. Sophia Frangou. After leaving NYC, Max moved to Nashville to work in the Emotion and Anxiety Research Lab at Vanderbilt university as a Research Analyst, with the primary role to serve as student coordinator for Dr. Bunmi Olatunji’s R21 study, which explored disgust as a distinct OCD endophenotype.
Max’s current research interests are in the cognitive and behavioral mechanisms associated with the maintenance and treatment of anxiety and related disorders.
Kayce Hopper (CV) is a second-year student in the Clinical Psychology program at Ole Miss. Kayce graduated from the College of Charleston in 2018 with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology. While at the College of Charleston, she completed her Senior Thesis, Negative Incentive Shifts in Food Reward Produce Ethanol Consumption in Rats, with Dr. Chad Galuska. After graduating from the College of Charleston, her Senior Thesis was incorporated into a manuscript, which she co-authored, titled Effects of Negative Incentive Shifts in Food Reward on Rats’ Consumption of Concurrent Ethanol Solutions. During her time as a post-baccalaureate, she was a research assistant at the Anxiety and Addictive Behaviors Lab and Clinic at Louisiana State University as well as an Applied Behavioral Analysis line technician at the Gulfsouth Autism Center in Baton Rouge, LA. Kayce’s research interests pertain to understanding how variables, such as distress tolerance, parental relationships, and anxiety sensitivity, mediate the relationship between anxiety and substance use in adolescents and young adults.
Leila Sachner (CV) is a first-year student in the Clinical Psychology program at Ole Miss. Leila graduated from the University of Virginia in 2020 with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. While at UVA, she was an undergraduate research assistant in the Program for Anxiety, Cognition, and Treatment Lab with Dr. Bethany Teachman, working on studies that examined online cognitive bias modification interventions for anxious individuals. After graduation, Leila completed a Post-Baccalaureate Clinical Fellowship at the Simches Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts. During this fellowship, Leila taught and implemented DBT with adolescents struggling with emotion dysregulation, self-injury, and suicidal ideation. She also worked in the Emotion Regulation, Family Transactions, and Trauma Lab with Dr. Alan Fruzzetti, examining family systems and outcomes of residential DBT treatment. Leila’s current research interests are in the role of validation on anxiety, emotion regulation, and parent-adolescent relationships.
Akia Sherrod (CV) is a first-year student in the Clinical Psychology program at Ole Miss. She attended Tougaloo College for her undergraduate studies and obtained a Bachelor of Science in Psychology. Her current research interests are child and adolescent anxiety and parent-child relationships. One of Sherrod’s favorite parts of being in the PANDAA Lab is learning more about anxiety disorders and the effects of anxiety on parent-child relationships through lab studies. After graduate school, Sherrod plans to practice as a Clinical Psychologist developing new treatment plans for all those facing mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with family and friends.