People
Elliot M. Tucker-Drob (Lab Director)
(photo by Mark James Adams)
Elliot Tucker-Drob is a Professor in the Department of Psychology and a Faculty Research Associate at the Population Research Center and the Center on Aging and Population Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Tucker-Drob received his PhD in Psychology from the University of Virginia, and has held fellowships at Harvard Medical School and the Max Planck Institute for Human Development. He co-founded and co-directs the Texas Twin Project.
Dr. Tucker-Drob’s research addresses the questions of how and why different people progress along different life trajectories. His research on infant, child, and adolescent development primarily focuses on how social and educational experiences combine with genetic variation to impact cognitive development, and mental health over time. His research on adult aging is primarily concerned with the predictors, patterns, and consequences of individual variation in aging-related cognitive declines and dementia. In support of this work, he constructs, evaluates, and applies a variety of statistical methods for cross-sectional, longitudinal, and genetic data.
Dr. Tucker-Drob is a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science (APS). From 2018 to 2020, he was a Jacobs Foundation Advanced Research Fellow. In 2019, Dr. Tucker-Drob received the Max Planck-Humboldt Medal. In 2017, he received Janet Taylor Spence Award for Transformative Contributions from APS. In 2015, he received the Fuller and Scott Award for Outstanding Scientific Accomplishments from the Behavior Genetics Association. Some of Dr. Tucker-Drob’s recent publications can be found in Psychological Bulletin, Nature Human Behaviour, Nature Genetics, Annual Review of Developmental Psychology, Psychological Science, and Developmental Psychology. His research is funded by the National Institutes of Health.
Javier de la Fuente (Research Scientist)
Dr. Javier de la Fuente visited the Lifespan Development Lab during Spring/Summer 2019, joined the lab as a full time Postdoctoral Fellow in Fall 2019, and was promoted to Research Scientist in 2022. Dr. de la Fuente completed a BSc in Cognitive Psychology at Complutense de Madrid, and a MSc on Methodology on Behavioral and Health Sciences. In 2017, he joined the doctoral program on Epidemiology and Public Health at the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Research and Training in Mental Health Services at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, under the supervision of Dr. José Luis Ayuso-Mateos and Dr. Francisco Félix Caballero. As a PhD student from the EU-funded ATHLOS project, his research focused on identifying heterogeneous trajectories of health in general population, with special interest on sensory and cognitive aging. He was conferred his Ph.D. summa cum laude in the Fall of 2019. Dr. de la Fuente’s current research continues his track record of applying sophisticated multivariate statistics to study the epdemiology of cognitive aging and health, and expanding his expertise to include advanced method in statstical genomics and genetic epidemiology.
Maggie Clapp (Graduate Student)
Maggie joined the doctoral program in the Individual Differences and Evolutionary Psychology(IDEP) area in 2020. She graduated from Washington University in St. Louis in 2018 with a B.A. in Psychology with honors and a minor in History. She then worked as a clinical research coordinator at the Washington University ALS Center under Dr. Tim Miller, where she helped launch the use of digital phenotyping measures in symptomatic and pre-symptomatic ALS patients. Previously, she also worked with Dr. Desiree White studying the impact of hydroxyurea therapy on cognitive performance in children with sickle cell disease. Her current research interests include examining genetic contributions to cognitive performance and the development of psychopathology.
Diego Londono Correa (Graduate Student)
Diego holds a BSc (Honours) degree in Biology from the University of Antioquia in Medellin-Colombia, and an Erasmus Mundus MSc degree in Evolutionary Biology (MEME Programme) from LMU Munich and Uppsala University. He has research experience in human population genetics, evolutionary anthropology, evolutionary genomics, and bioinformatics. He is interested in combining behavioral genetics methods with evolutionary approaches on human behavior. His parimary affiliation is with Paige Harden’s Developmental Behavior Genetics Lab, and works closely with Dr. Tucker-Drob and other members of the Lifespan Development Lab. He enjoys watching documentaries and reading non-fiction books on science, philosophy, and history. He also practices judo, contemporary dance, and acrobatic sports.
Garrett Ennis (Graduate Student)
Garrett joined Elliot Tucker-Drob’s lifespan development lab as a clinical psychology PhD student in 2022 after graduating from Sonoma State University as a McNair Scholar with a BA in psychology and a minor in applied statistics. While at Sonoma State, he collaborated with Dr. Adam Zagelbaum to develop a trauma curriculum for incarcerated men which was focused on socioemotional education to help individuals to promote healing from their past trauma, develop resilience against the ongoing trauma of incarceration and aid in community reintegration upon release. Additionally, through the Leadership Alliance Early Identification Program, he had the opportunity to spend the summer at Vanderbilt University under the supervision of Dr. Kathryn Humphreys, investigating the mechanisms behind the intergenerational transmission of psychopathology, which began an interest in the influence of genes on the development of mental health disorders. Broadly, Garrett is interested in how negative life experiences can lead to the development of psychopathologies or dysfunctional behaviors, as well as alternative conceptualizations of mental health disorders which aim to move past the disease model of psychopathology to better appreciate the continuous nature of symptom severity in clinical populations. His current research aims to illuminate the intersection of personality and psychopathology through the use of molecular genetic methodologies to explore the relationship between normal range variation in human traits and variation in symptom presentation and severity in mental health disorders.
Rachel Hsu (Graduate Student)
Rachel joined the doctoral program in the Individual Differences and Evolutionary Psychology (IDEP) area in 2024. She graduated from Wesleyan University with a B.A. in Psychology and Biology. While at Wesleyan, she was a part of Dr. Fred Cohan’s microbiology lab and Dr. Hilary Barth’s Cognitive Development Lab and worked under the guidance of Dr. Grace Sullivan as well. She then went on to work as a Lab Manager at the University of Michigan on the Study of Adolescent and Adult Neural Development (SAND) headed by Dr. Luke Hyde and Dr. Chris Monk. She was also a part of the Psychopathology, Population Health, and Genetics lab under Dr. Leah Richmond-Rakerd. At U-M she assisted with fMRI imaging and administered various interviews and surveys to study the impact of adversity exposure on brain development. Rachel’s current research interests include examining how environmental and genetic factors influence psychological development across the lifespan.
Sofia Semyrenko (Project Manager)
Sofia joined the Lifespan Development Lab in the summer of 2023. She graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a B.S. in Neuroscience Scholars and a certificate in Forensic Science. Before joining the team, she worked as a research assistant at the Epigenetics, Development and Neuroscience Lab, studying the effects of environmental factors on working memory of the offspring. She wrote an experimental thesis examining the impact of prenatal exposure to a bisphenol A, F, S mixture on anxiety-like behavior in rodents. Sofia is primarily interested in the epigenetic mechanisms underlying susceptibility and development of mental health disorders as a result of childhood trauma. She would like to continue pursuing her academic interests and apply for a PhD program in the future.
Lifespan Lab Alumni/ae
D.A. Briley
Dr. D.A. Briley joined the graduate program in the Individual Differences and Evolutionary Psychology (IDEP) area in 2010 and was awarded a Ph.D. in May, 2015. Dr. Briley began a position as Assistant Professor of Psychology and Human Sociogenomics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in Fall, 2015. Dr. Briley’s research examines how individuals’ unique characteristics dynamically shape and interact with their environments to influence personality and identity development. Their research draws on interdisciplinary theory and methodology, with a particular focus on ways that gender impacts thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and trajectories of identity development.
Amanda Cheung
Dr. Amanda Cheung joined the doctoral program in Clinical Psychology in 2011, and successfully defended her dissertation in May, 2016. She completed her clinical internship at the Mailman Center for Child Development at the University of Miami in August, 2017. Dr. Cheung was instrumental in developing the Texas “Tiny” Twin study of parenting and child development over the first 6 years of life. Some of her recent research on early child development has been published in Behavior Genetics, Developmental Psychobiology, and Parenting: Science and Practice.
Evan Easley
Evan Easley graduated in 2018 from The University of Texas at Austin with a B.A. in Psychology and a minor in History. While an undergraduate student, he worked for a year and a half in Dr. Elliot Tucker-Drob’s Lifespan Development Lab. He then worked as a lab coordinator at the lifespan lab from 2019-2021. Evan will pursue a Master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling, with an emphasis on serving multicultural populations.
Laura Engelhardt
Dr. Laura Engelhardt joined the doctoral program in the Individual Differences and Evolutionary Psychology area in 2013 and successfully defended her dissertation in July, 2018. Dr. Engelhardt’s work at the Lifespan Development Lab incoporated measures of socioeconomic status into studies of gene-environment interplay. Additionally, she has investigated how these factors relate to structural and functional differences in the developing brain. Dr. Engelhardt was supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.
Vanessa Fishel
Vanessa worked as a Project Manager for the Texas Twin Project from 2021 to 2023, after which point she went on to pursue a PhD in Clinical Psychology.
Samantha Freis
Samantha Freis worked as as a lab coordinator on the Texas Twin Project from 2017 to 2019, and is now pursuing a Ph.D. in behavioral genetics at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Andrew Grotzinger
Dr. Andrew Grotzinger joined the doctoral program in Clinical Psychology in 2015 and successfully defended his dissertation in April, 2020. His research has focused on the development and application of new statistical genomic methods for elucidating the joint genetic architecture of complex traits. Dr. Grotzinger spent the 2020/2021 academic year on clinical internship at Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital. He is now a tenure-track Assistant Professor at Institute for Behavioral Genetics/Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado Boulder.
Kelseanna Hollis-Hansen
Dr. Kelseanna Hollis-Hansen was an NHLBI T32 postdoctoral fellow in the Dell Medical School and the Steve Hicks School of Social Work from 2020 to 2022. Dr. Hollis-Hansen’s research focuses on designing and analyzing food retail interventions that aim to improve diet and increase food equity in under resourced communities. In 2022 she began a tenure-track Assistant Professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas where she co-directs a new center on culinary medicine at a community clinic in Red Bird Mall.
Lucy King
Dr. King joined the Lifespan Development Lab as a postdoctoral research fellow in 2021 after receiving an F32 Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award from the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development. During her fellowship, Dr. King worked under the supervision of Dr. Elliot Tucker-Drob and Dr. Charles Zeanah (Tulane University) to examine environmental and genetic contributions to young children’s trajectories of psychological development. She became a computational social scientist at IDEO in 2022.
James Madole
James joined the doctoral program in Clinical Psychology in 2017 where he developed a program of empirical and theoretical research addressing the links between biology (e.g. genetics, brain structure) and behavior (e.g. psychopathology, cognitive aging). In February, 2022, he successfully defended his dissertation, titled “Individual Differences in Biology and Behavior: Methodological, Empirical, and Theoretical Insights.” James is spending the 2022-2023 academic year on Clinical Internship at VA Puget Sound, Seattle.
Margherita Malanchini
Dr. Margherita Malanchini received a PhD in Psychology at Goldsmiths University of London, and was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow postdoctoral research fellow at the Texas Twin Project from 2017-2018. Dr. Malanchini is currently a tenure-track lecturer (Assistant Professor) in the Psychology Department at Queen Mary University of London. Her research investigates psychological, environmental, and biological mechanisms that support individual differences in learning and cognition over development.
Frank Mann
Dr. Frank Mann joined the doctoral program in the Individual Differences and Evolutionary Psychology area in 2013 and successfully defended his dissertation in July, 2017. He began a postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of Minessota in the Fall of 2017, working with Colin DeYoung, Valerie Tiberius, and Robert Krueger on a project that combines philosophy and behavioral genetics to disentangle genetic and environmental components of the link between personality and well-being.
Megan Patterson
Dr. Megan Patterson joined the doctoral program in Clinical Psychology in 2014 and spent the 2019/2020 academic year on clinical internship at the Medical University of South Carolina. Her research interests are primarily centered on child-driven effects in parenting adolescents, and gene-environment correlation in the development of adolescent psychopathology.
Nick Patton
Nick Patton was Lab Coordinator for the Texas Twin Project from 2018-2020. He graduated with Honors from the University of Texas at Austin with a B.S. in Psychology in 2018.
Laurel Raffington
Dr. Raffington joined the Texas Twin Project as a postdoctoral research fellow funded by the German Research Association in February 2019 under the mentorship of Dr. Elliot Tucker-Drob and Dr. Paige Harden, where she developed a program of research focusing on social inequality in child spychological development, with a focus on epigenetics and other biomarkers. In 2022, Dr. Raffington began a position as group leader of the Biosocial Max Planck Research Group at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, in Berlin Germany.
Mijke Rhemtulla
Dr. Mijke Rhemtulla received her PhD in Psychology from the University of British Columbia. Dr. Rhemtulla is both a Developmental Psychologist and a Quantititave Psychologist, who has spent time visiting the Lifespan Development Lab as a University of Texas Visiting Scholar. She completed postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of Kansas and went on to become an Assistant Professor in the Psychological Methods program at the University of Amsterdam. She is now an Associate Professor in the Quantitative Psychology program at the University of California, Davis.
Aditi Sabhlok
Aditi joined the doctoral program in Clinical Psychology in 2017. Her research interests are centered on examining genetic and environmental contributions to the association between executive functions and disruptive behaviours in elementary school children, and how these factors impact academic achievement. Aditi is spending the 2022-2023 acaemic year on Clinical Internship at Baylor College of Medicine/Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, TX.
Stephanie Savicki
Stephanie joined the graduate program in the Individual Differences and Evolutionary Psychology area in 2015 and obtained her MA in 2018. She is primarily interested in personality development throughout the lifespan, as well as how genetic, temperamental, and socioeconomic factors relate to individual differences in academic achievement motivation.
Ted Schwaba
Dr. Ted Schwaba completed his PhD in Psychology at the University of California Davis in 2021 after which point he joined the lifespan development lab as a postdoctoral researcher. His research focuses on using modern statistical techniques and large datasets to understand lifespan personality and psychopathology development. How do people change across the lifespan, and what role do life events (like retirement) and experiences (like lead exposure) play in this change, and how can genomic methods be used to enrich our answers to these questions? Dr. Schwaba is now a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Psychology at Michigan State University. You can find more about Dr. Schwaba’s research on his website (tedmond.net).
Samuel Smith
Dr. Sam Smith was a post-doctoral fellow in the Lifespan Development and the Harpak Lab in the Integrative Biology Department at UT Austin from 2022-2024. He completed his bachelor in Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology at Vanderbilt University in 2017 where he worked with Dr. Antonis Rokas on identifying genetic variants that contribute to variation in reproductive life history traits in domestic dog breeds. In 2022 he completed his PhD in Evolution and Computational Biology from Brown University with Dr. Sohini Ramachandran. Dr. Smith’s postodcotral work was on developing statistical frameworks to better understand the role of “G-by-” interaction effects that are ascertained using standard variant association tests in human genomic data.
Megan Thibodeaux
Megan was a project coordinator for the Twin Brains Study. She joined the team as a research assistant in 2014, went on to become a full-time project coordinator. Megan graduated from the University of Texas with a B.A. in psychology and a B.M. in voice performance.
Liza Vinnik
Liza Vinnik graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a B.A. in Psychology with honors, and a minor in Philosophy. Prior to becoming a Lab Coordinator for the Texas Twin Project, she completed her undergraduate thesis examining genetic and environmental links between different domains of conduct problems and academic achievement. She worked as a project coordinator on the Texas Twin Project from 2019-2021 and subsequently transitioned to a data scientist role in which she conducted a variety important tasks related to database management, data quality control, and statistical analysis through 2024.
Camille Williams
Dr. Camille Williams was a post-doctoral fellow at the Lifespan Development Lab and Professor Paige Harden’s Development Behavior Genetics Lab from 2022-2024. She completed her doctorate at the Ecole Normale Superieure, under the supervision of Dr. Franck Ramus and Dr. Hugo Peyre. During her post-doctoral fellowship, she conducted interdisciplinary research linking genetic and environmental factors to mental disorders, the brain and behavioral measures.
Cherry Youn
Cherry joined the graduate program in Clinical Psychology in 2018 and recieved her MA in 2020. Her MA research examined polygenic scores for educational attainment in relation to intensive learning over 100 days of practice.