Meet Allison
Allison is a 5th year Ph.D. student in the Clinical Psychology program at Washington University in St. Louis, working with Dr. Ryan Bogdan. She received her bachelor’s degree in neuroscience from Wheaton College (MA) in 2013.
After college, Allison worked for three years with Dr. Bruce Fischl at the Laboratory for Computational Neuroimaging in the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School. There she was responsible for managing several imaging projects of various clinical populations. Allison processed and analyzed in vivo and ex vivo terabyte-scale structural and diffusion MRI data using FreeSurfer, other neuroimaging software packages, and custom scripts. She also acquired high resolution, experimental ex vivo human brain imaging on 7 T, 3 T, and 1.5 T MRI scanners, using custom coils and sequences. She was also highly involved in supporting the lab’s FreeSurfer neuroimaging software package – testing for new version releases, troubleshooting user problems and teaching members of the neuroscience community how to use FreeSurfer at domestic and international courses.
In the BRAIN lab, Allison has integrated her neuroscience and neuroimaging background with her clinical psychology training to investigate the neural mechanisms of internalizing disorders. She is also interested in putative effects of treatments for these conditions on the brain. Her work to date has examined depression, OCD, and suicidality, as well as psychological and pharmacological treatments for internalizing disorders. She has also gained expertise in perinatal psychiatric concerns, through a clinical practicum at the School of Medicine’s Perinatal Behavioral Health Service and research on prenatal SSRI and cannabis exposure. Allison’s dissertation will examine neural correlates of Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder traits, which is highly comorbid with internalizing disorders.
Allison’s clinical interests also focus on internalizing disorders, although she is excited to broaden her clinical training next year on internship, gaining experience with new treatments, modalities, and populations.
Outside of work, Allison enjoys playing tennis, doing yoga, and spending time outdoors.