Graduate Students

Research Coordinators

Undergraduate Research Assistants

Recent Lab Graduates

Tim Perry, MA
A UNC alumnus, Tim spent several years working in the autism and developmental disabilities fields before returning for graduate school in the fall of 2005.  He is currently involved in a pilot study which seeks to adapt the manualized Social Cognition and Interaction Training (SCIT) for use with adults and adolescents with high-functioning autism.  This intervention was originally developed by Dr. Penn and Dave Roberts for use with individuals with schizophrenia.  Tim hopes to extend this intervention by examining the relationship between social impairment and psychological distress in individuals with autism and whether improvements in social functioning result in lower rates of reported distress.  He is working on this project under the guidance of Dr. Penn and Dr. Gary Mesibov at Division TEACCH.  In his spare time Tim may be found checking out the local music scene (at record stores or concerts), playing guitar, exercising or watching college athletics and rooting for his UNC Tarheels.

Clare Marks Gibson, MA
Clare was raised in Rockaway Beach, NY. She graduated from Binghamton University with a BA in Psychology. While at Binghamton, she worked with Dr. Mark Lenzenweger studying the neurobiological bases of schizophrenia and schizotypy. After graduating in 2004, she was a Research Support Assistant at the New York State Psychiatric Institute (NYSPI) where she assisted in trials sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. While working at NYSPI, she was a Volunteer Research Assistant for Dr. Barbara Cornblatt at the Recognition and Prevention Program affiliated with Zucker-Hillside Hospital. Clare’s current research interests are in early disease detection and prevention, factors that contribute to disease onset, as well as the recurrence of episodes and risk factors in first-degree relatives. In her free time, she runs with the Trailheads, a local running group, and enjoys going out dancing with Sarah.

Clare is currently on internship at the VA Maryland Health Care System/University of Maryland Internship Consortium.

Allison Bassett Ratto
Allison was born and raised in Houston, Texas. She attended the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, where she studied psychology and education studies. During her time at CUA, Allison also worked as a research assistant at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development on a project studying interpersonal therapy as an intervention for adolescent girls with binge eating disorder. She also engaged in clinical work with young children with autism spectrum disorders at the BRIDGES Preschool of Texas Children’s Hospital. Following her graduation, Allison was accepted as a graduate student in the UNC Clinical Psychology Program. Her current research interests are broadly in the area of autism spectrum disorders, specifically in the areas of social skills and early identification. Allison has collaborated with Dr. David Penn and Dr. Gary Mesibov of Division TEACCH to develop a peer-based role play measure of social skills for adolescents and young adults with autism spectrum disorders. She is currently working to further develop this measure, while also pursuing research with Dr. Mesibov and Dr. Steven Reznick on the screening and diagnosis of autism spectrum disorders among Latino infants and children.

Katy Harper Romeo, MA
Katy was born and raised outside of Vancouver, Canada. Katy earned a B.A. from McGill University in Psychology before moving to New York City to pursue a M.A. in Counselling Psychology from Columbia University. After completing her Masters she worked for two years as a Research Coordinator at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, working on several projects including a study of treatment refractory schizophrenia and a study of hypochondriasis. Her current interests involve working with people suffering from medication resistent psychotic illnesses, chronically ill inpatient populations and the therapeutic factors that may influence treatment outcome in group CBT. Outside of school she spends a great deal of time collecting records and vintage metal band shirts.

Kristin Healey, BS
Kristin hails from East Windsor, NJ. She simply couldn’t leave the lovely garden state and consequently attended The College of New Jersey (TCNJ), where she studied psychology. After graduating in 2007, she worked as a research assistant at the University of Pennsylvania’s Schizophrenia Research Center with Dr. Christian Kohler and Raquel Gur, coordinating various projects involving emotion perception/expression and negative symptoms. Her current research interests include, but are not limited to: the development of paranoia across the course of illness, measurement of social cognitive domains, and general early illness detection/investigation of predictive factors of disease onset. The bulk of her free time is spent running, watching Netflix, finding new music and dining locales in the triangle, and thinking about adopting a dog.

Benjamin Buck, BA
Ben was raised just north of Indianapolis, Indiana in a small town called Westfield. He attended UNC as an undergrad, majoring in philosophy and psychology. While attending UNC, Ben started work in the Penn Lab, helping to spearhead the creation and use of a measure of emotional knowledge in first-person narratives, used as one of many outcome measures for participants in SCIT. Ben has also worked as a research assistant at the Roudebush VA Hospital in Indianapolis with Dr. Paul Lysaker, researching metacognition in schizophrenia through the use of a semi-structured life story interview. Broadly, Ben's research interests fall within the category of psychosocial treatments for schizophrenia, but more specifically include social cognition in schizophrenia, first-episode psychosis intervention, metacognition, and the use of first-person narrative as a research tool. Outside of Davie Hall, Ben enjoys finding and listening to live jazz, reading fiction, and avidly following a number of sports teams, most notably and proudly Carolina basketball.

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Piper Meyer, PhD
Piper Meyer is the Research Coordinator for the Penn Lab.  She was born in Joplin, Missouri and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  She is married and has two sons, ages 5 and 8.  She is currently a project coordinator for the Recovery After an Initial Schizophrenia Episode (RAISE) project and the Social Cognition and Interaction Training (SCIT) study.  The goal of RAISE is to improve the long-term trajectory of schizophrenia and reduce disability by providing rapid, comprehensive, effective identification and treatment at the first episode of psychosis. The SCIT study is comparing a group to improve social cognition to a group receiving treatment as usual.  She has ten years of clinical experience working with people with schizophrenia.  Dr. Meyer graduated from Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis with a doctorate in Clinical Rehabilitation Psychology.  She was a postdoctoral fellow in Mental Health and Substance Abuse Systems and Services Research at the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 2003-2005.  She has specialized in psychiatric rehabilitation and has worked on projects that examined the implementation of Assertive Community Treatment across the state of North Carolina, Forensic Assertive Community Treatment teams across the nation, and a study of comparing group CBT to group supportive counseling for treatment resistant auditory hallucinations in schizophrenia.  She has received extensive training in ACT, social skills training, cognitive behavior therapy, and Illness Management and Recovery.  She co-developed the advanced cognitive behavioral treatment training for Illness Management training and the Minnesota Clinical Competency Scale for Illness Management and Recovery.  She is currently a national trainer and consultant for Illness Management and Recovery.

Kelly Smedley, MSN
Kelly is a clinical nurse specialist who coordinates and performs testing for a research study on the effects of oxytocin treatment on social cognitive and functional deficits in schizophrenia. In addition, she performs crisis evaluations, conducts individual therapy sessions, and performs various departmental nursing duties. She received her bachelor's degree in nursing from the University of Delaware and her masters degree in nursing from the University of Pittsburgh. She is a board certified Clinical Nurse Specialist in Adult Psychiatric and Mental Health and has experience managing research programs, supervising outpatient, inpatient, and crisis settings, as well as performing psychiatric assessments and therapy for children, adolescents, and adults.

Tonya Elliot, MS
Tonya is a study coordinator who assists with the coordination and testing of the oxytocin treatment on social cognitive and functional deficits in schizophrenia research study. She is also a research coordinator at the Schizophrenia Treatment and Evaluation Program (STEP) Research Clinic at the North Carolina Psychiatric Research Center (NCPRC) in Raleigh. At the NCPRC, she coordinates the UNC Center for Excellence in Community Mental Health Consultation Outcomes Project (COPE) as well as helps to manage the STEP database. She received both her bachelor’s degree in psychology and her master’s degree in lifespan developmental psychology at North Carolina State University where her research focus was on aging and memory. Prior to graduate school, she worked in multiple research settings in the triangle area with groups of psychometricians, child clinical psychologists and social workers

Charles Olbert, BA
Charles Olbert is the Project Coordinator for the Social Cognition And Functioning Study (SCAF) and has provided research assistance for the SCIT and RAISE projects. He received his B.A. in philosophy from UNC Chapel Hill in 2005, focusing on philosophy of mind and the epistemology of self-knowledge. Charles is interested in research into psychological interventions for severe mental illness, with a focus on factors that contribute to or hinder the remediation of psychosocial deficits in schizophrenia. He is particularly interested in investigating psychotherapy process and outcome, therapeutic alliance, and trait-level diatheses (e.g. personality) in schizophrenia, and he maintains an interested in theoretical issues pertaining to psychiatric nosology and the nature of mental illness. In a former life he did astrophysics research. When neither working nor spending time with his wife and dogs, Charles reads a lot of books, plays the bass guitar, and sits and stares at walls (i.e. practices Zen meditation).

Betty Rupp, BS
Betty Rupp is the former Project Coordinator for the Social Cognition And Functioning Study (SCAF), Social Cognition and Interaction Training (SCIT) study, and the Social Cognition & Interaction Training study for adolescents and young adults with High Functioning Autism (SCIT-A). She obtained her Bachelor's in Psychology from the University of Alabama in Birmingham and has over 6 years of field experience working with people with schizophrenia.

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Sarah Uzenoff, PhD
Sarah graduated in 2011 from UNC, where her research focused on evaluating psychological and psychosocial treatments for young adults experiencing first-episode psychoses. She completed her pre-doctoral internship at Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York before moving to Washington DC to begin a postdoctoral residency at Saint Elizabeths Hospital. There she currently provides therapy and assessment to both civil and forensic inpatients and is involved in supervision and teaching activities.

David Johnson, PhD
Staff Psychologist, Guam Department of Mental Health & Substance Abuse

Dr. Johnson is a clinical psychologist working in the area of rural mental health on the Pacific Island territory of Guam. He works primarily with individuals with severe mental illness and developmental disabilities. He maintains an interest in multicultural psychology, trauma, and group therapy as well as training of students and other mental health care staff.

Abigail Judge, PhD
Post-doctoral fellowship in Child Forensic Psychology at Massachusetts General Hospital's Children and the Law Program/Clinical Fellow, Harvard Medical School

Abigail completed her clinical internship at Harvard Medical School/Cambridge Hospital in Child and Adult Psychiatry in July 2009.

Evan Waldheter, PhD
Staff Psychologist, MIT Mental Health and Counseling Service

Evan graduated from the UNC Clinical Ph.D. Program in 2008, and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in clinical psychology at the Cambridge Health Alliance/Harvard Medical School in August, 2009. Currently, he is a staff psychologist at the MIT Mental Health and Counseling Service, teaches part-time at Boston College, and supervises psychiatry residents at the Harvard Med School Longwood Psychiatry Residency Program.

David Roberts, PhD
Staff Psychologist, University of Texas Health Science Center

Dr. Roberts is a clinical psychologist studying psychosocial treatment and social cognition in psychosis. He is interested in using normative models of social judgment and decision-making to understand and enhance abnormal social cognition. For the past eight years, he has focused largely on the development and testing of Social Cognition and Interaction Training (SCIT), an intervention that he developed with David Penn and Dennis Combs. Dr. Roberts also studies paranoia, delusion, and treatment of early psychosis.

Amy Pinkham, PhD
Assistant Professor, Southern Methodist University

After finishing a postdoctoral fellowship at the Brain Behavior Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania in 2009, Amy joined the psychology faculty of Southern Methodist University where she is Director of the Social Cognition and Schizophrenia Research Lab. Her research program links the fields of clinical psychology and neuroscience in an effort to address fundamental questions regarding the behavioral characteristics and neural basis of social cognitive dysfunction in schizophrenia. Her current work utilizes both BOLD and ASL imaging methods to examine amygdala functioning in individuals with schizophrenia, and she is particularly interested in understanding how amygdala function may differ between paranoid and non-paranoid patients. In addition to her work specifically examining schizophrenia, Amy is also involved in several collaborations that aim to shed light on the developmental pathogenesis of social cognitive impairments by comparing social cognitive abilities in individuals with schizophrenia and individuals with autism.

Shannon Couture, PhD
Assistant Professor, University of Southern California

Shannon graduated from UNC-CH in 2007.  Since then, she joined the faculty at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom from 2007-2008, then the faculty at the University of Maryland College Park in 2008.  While there, she worked with Dr. Jack Blanchard and his lab, investigating cognitions associated with negative symptoms in schizophrenia, and social factors important for individuals with elevated rates of social anhedonia.  Recently, Shannon has joined the faculty at the University of Southern California as Assistant Professor of the Practice of Psychology and Director of the Psychology Services Center.  She is actively involved in improving clinical training for students earning their doctoral degree in clinical science at USC, teaching at the graduate and undergraduate levels, and supervising therapy and assessment cases. 

Dennis Combs, PhD
Associate Professor, University of Texas at Tyler

Dennis Combs is currently an associate  professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Tyler.  Prior to moving back home to Texas, he  worked at the University of Tulsa for 5 years in the Ph.D. Clinical psychology program.  Dennis was a student of Dr. Penn's at LSU.  He received the 2009 Early Career Award from the National Register of Health Service Psychologist.  Dennis spends his time researching paranoia, social cognition, and methods to improve these areas.  He has published over 45 papers since finishing grad school in 2002. 

James Martin, PhD
Forensic Psychologist, Gainesville, GA

James had the opportunity to work with Dr. Penn in his labs at IIT and LSU. He interned at the William S. Hall Psychiatric Institute in South Carolina and completed his doctorate from LSU in 2002. This was followed by a one year temporary appointment as an assistant professor at the North Georgia College & State University, after which he settled into private practice in Gainesville, Georgia. Now, his practice predominately involves conducting forensic/court-ordered assessments for various juvenile and superior courts and the Department of Juvenile Justice. When not working he prefers to spend his free time with his 12-year old daughter and digging through the dirt in various locales in search of semi-precious gemstones and minerals. David has had a deep impact on my professional career, and was a great mentor to work with./p>

J. Meg Racenstein, PhD
Clinical Neuropsychologist, Chicago, IL

J. Meg Racenstein, Ph.D., is a licensed Clinical Neuropsychologist in private practice. She has two offices located in the northern suburbs of Chicago. Dr. Racenstein has extensive experience conducting neuropsychological assessments of school age children, adolescents and young adults with known or suspected attentional, psychological, learning or substance-induced disorders, as well as intellectually gifted individuals. Dr. Racenstein focused her research on patients with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the dual diagnosis of substance abuse. She studied the diagnosis and assessment of psychiatric symptomatology as well as cognitive and psychosocial functioning in these population subsets.

Dr. Racenstein received her B.S. degree in Psychology at the University of Illinois, Champaign, followed by her M.A., in Community Counseling at Loyola University, Chicago. She earned her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Institute of Psychology. She completed her internship and post-doctoral fellowship training in Neuropsychology at the University of Illinois Medical Center in Chicago.

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