I am a Professor in the Department of Psychology and the Interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience at Georgetown and am the co-director of the Interdisciplinary PhD Concentration in Cognitive Science. I received my BA in Psychology from Dartmouth College in 1999 and my PhD in Social Psychology in 2004. Before coming to Georgetown, I conducted post-doctoral work at the NIMH from 2004-2008. My areas of expertise include social and affective neuroscience, particularly understanding emotional processes like empathy and how they relate to altruism, aggression, and psychopathy. This work is conducted in studies of adolescents and adults that incorporate neuroimaging, cognitive and behavioral testing, and pharmacology techniques.
My work has been published in academic journals including the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Psychological Science, the American Journal of Psychiatry, and JAMA Psychiatry. My lab's work on neural and cognitive correlates of extraordinary altruism was awarded the Cozzarelli Prize by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
I serve on the advisory boards of the National Kidney Donor Organization and 1DaySooner and am a co-founder of the Society for the Prevention of Disorders of Aggression .