Director
Dr. Christie J. Rizzo
Christie J. Rizzo, Associate Professor of Applied Psychology, earned a PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Southern California. She completed her internship in Clinical Psychology at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School and her postdoctoral fellowship in Clinical Psychology at the Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies (CAAS) at Brown University. Dr. Rizzo was previously the Assistant Director of the Juvenile Mental Health Clinic at the Rhode Island Family Court. Dr. Rizzo’s research focuses on the development and implementation of evidence-based, violence and risk behavior prevention programming for youth, including technology-based initiatives. Her prevention work centers around the use of skills-based approaches to both reduce risk and promote resilience among our most vulnerable youth including those involved in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems.
Graduate Students
Elizabeth Collier, M.S.
Libby is a first year PhD student in the Counseling Psychology program at Northeastern University.
Briana Paulo, M.S.
Briana is a second year PhD student in the Counseling Psychology program at Northeastern University.
Payton Bruland, M.S.
Payton is a third year PhD student in the Counseling Psychology program at Northeastern University. Prior to pursuing her graduate studies at Northeastern, Payton received her master’s degree from Gonzaga University. As a master’s student she completed two clinical fieldwork experiences, conducted research studies with professors and peers, and presented these studies at national conferences.
Graduates
Erik Hood, Ph.D.
Erik is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Bradley Hospital in Providence, RI. He is interested in studying how parents exacerbate or protect against teen aggression, emotion dysregulation, depression, cyber-dating abuse, and in-personal dating violence. He is also interested in outcomes associated with teens displaying poor emotion regulation such as aggression and sexual risk. Prior to beginning at Northeastern, Erik received an M.S. in Mental Health Counseling from Husson University (2015) and a B.A. in Psychology from Bates College (2008). His previous work included a variety of clinical and research settings such as individual therapy with nontraditional college students returning to school, supporting adults with intellectual disabilities , and individual/group therapy with adult men mandated to specialized sexual offender treatment. Erik has also worked with adolescents in supported residential and alternative high school settings.
Madeline Manning, M.A.
Madeline is a pediatric neuropsychology resident at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in Miami, FL. She received her B.A. in Psychology and Communications from Stonehill College (2015) and her M.A. in Mental Health Counseling and Behavioral Medicine from Boston University School of Medicine (2017). Prior to beginning graduate school, Madeline worked as a mental health counselor at the adult inpatient psychiatric unit at Tufts Medical Center. While working towards her M.A., Madeline also volunteered as a clinical research assistant at the Pediatric Anxiety Research Clinic at Bradley Hospital and the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Rhode Island Hospital. During that time, she helped conduct research on the dissemination of treatment for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and other anxiety related disorders in children, and on the social impacts that influence adolescent suicidal thoughts and behaviors post-discharge from an inpatient level of care. Madeline completed clinical internships at Franciscan Children’s Hospital in the Community Based Acute Treatment (CBAT) Unit and at Riverside Community Care Life Skills Center during her M.A. training, where she served outpatient and residential clients ranging in age from 4 to 18 years old. Madeline’s primary research interests include exploring the protective factors that promote resilience in children and adolescents, as well as integrating community and individual resilience to violence and trauma. Madeline also has interests in the areas of adolescent dating violence prevention, pediatric psychology, anxiety disorders, and mood disorders.
Kaitlyn Schneider, M.S.
Kaitlyn is a pre-doctoral psychology intern at Judge Baker Children’s Center in Boston, MA. Prior to entering our doctoral program, she received an M.S. in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Villanova University and a B.S. in Psychological Science from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Her primary research interests are in the areas of domestic violence, attachment, and trauma. Her previous work has explored the development of a rater-based method to measure secondary attachment strategies enacted within the maternal-fetal attachment relationship. She has also previously worked clinically with clients experiencing domestic violence.
Daniel I. Gittins Stone, Ph.D.
Daniel is a staff psychologist at the McLean Anxiety Mastery Program (MAMP), McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School. He earned his MA in Counseling from the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis (2012), and his BA in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts, Boston (2010). He has completed a post-master’s fellowship at the Boston Institute for Psychotherapy, during which he worked with children, families, and school staff in the Boston Public School system. Daniel has completed clinical trainings at Franciscan’s Hospital for Children and McLean’s Anxiety Mastery Program, and has worked for MetroWest Neuropsychology and McLean’s Child and Adolescent Testing Services. Daniel completed his pre-doctoral psychology internship in the Department of Behavioral Psychology at the Kennedy Krieger Institute/Johns Hopkins. His research interests include dating violence and suicide prevention among adolescents who are involved with the Juvenile Justice System.
Hannah Doucette, M.A.
Hannah is currently a post-doctoral fellow in the Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies (CAAS) at Alpert Medical School of Brown University. She received her M.A. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Southern Mississippi and her B.A. in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Prior to starting graduate school, Hannah spent several years working as a clinical research assistant and case manager for the Bradley/Hasbro Children’s Research Center at Rhode Island Hospital. Her research interests include interpersonal violence and risk-prevention among children and adolescents. She completed an NIH F31 award to support her doctoral research and training. Currently, Hannah’s primary research focus is on adolescent dating violence prevention, specifically parent-based interventions. Her clinical experience includes working with adolescents in a variety of settings, including the juvenile justice system and intensive treatment programs.
Staff & Volunteers
Brett DeJesus, M.A.
Brett served as a clinical research assistant for the Date SMART Research Team until 2020. He received a B.A. in Human Biology from Brown University (2013) and a M.A. in Clinical Psychology from Roger Williams University (2016). Brett’s primary research interests include the impact of dating relationships on eating behaviors, body satisfaction, and self-esteem.
Kelsey Bala, B.A.
Kelsey received her MPH from Brown University School of Public Health. She previously worked on our projects as a Clinical Research Assistant. She received her Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from Gordon College (Wenham, MA), where her concentration was Health Professions, with a particular focus in Public Health. During her undergraduate education, she was first introduced to the mental health division of public health while volunteering as a research assistant at Tufts Medical Center (Boston, MA). The study she was involved with aimed to evaluate the accuracy of HIV patients’ self-report of cognitive dysfunction. After receiving her BS, she worked as a Community Liaison representing The Miriam Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island. As liaison, she led multiple health forums to identify what the major health concerns are in the community, and how the hospital could better mitigate those concerns.
Coral Shuster, M.S.
Coral completed her Master’s in Clinical Psychology at Roger Williams University. She earned her BA in Clinical and Counseling Psychology from Ohio Northern University. Coral’s research interests include understanding the impact of emotion regulation deficits on daily functioning for those with special needs and examining the use of emotion regulation training in preventing risky behaviors during adolescence.
Collaborators
Charlene Collibee, Ph.D.
Charlene is a research faculty at Alpert Medical School of Brown University. Charlene received her PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Denver and completed her predoctoral internship at the Brown University Clinical Psychology Training Consortium. Her research interests focus on within-person variation in risk and resilience, particularly related to interpersonal relationships and dating violence. Charlene is also interested in intensive sampling and advanced longitudinal modeling.