{"id":1090,"date":"2020-07-23T20:15:20","date_gmt":"2020-07-23T20:15:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hertinglab.usc.edu\/?page_id=1090"},"modified":"2025-08-05T22:41:19","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T22:41:19","slug":"meet-the-team-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/hertinglab.usc.edu\/index.php\/meet-the-team-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the Team"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n
\"\"<\/div>

Dr. Megan Herting, Ph.D.<\/h4>\"\"<\/a>
Principal Investigator<\/div>Dr. Herting is an Associate Professor in the Department of Population and Public Health Sciences and has a joint appointment in Pediatrics at Children's Hospital Los Angeles<\/font>. She is also a Faculty Mentor for the USC Neuroscience Graduate Program<\/font>.

As a Behavioral Neuroscientist, she has expertise in neurodevelopment,  using multi-modal MRI techniques [i.e. structural MRI, functional MRI (fMRI), resting-state functional connectivity (rs-fcMRI), and Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI)], as well as cognition and emotions in children, adolescents, and young adults.

<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/section>
\"\"

Kirthana Sukumaran, M.S.<\/h4>\"\"<\/a>
Project Specialist<\/div>
Kirthana graduated from the University of Texas at Dallas with a Master of Science in Applied Cognition and Neuroscience. She works on studies involving the ABCD dataset to analyze effects of environment such as air pollution exposure on brain diffusion outcomes and mental health. She assists with creation, quality control and analysis of cognitive and neuroimaging data.<\/div><\/div>
\"\"

Hedyeh Ahmadi, Ph.D.<\/h4>
Biostatistitian<\/div>
Hedyeh Ahmadi earned her postdoc from University of California, Irvine in 2021 and Ph.D. in Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics from Columbia University in 2019. She completed her M.S. in Statistics at University of California, Irvine in 2016. Her research focuses on applying and testing of methods for analyzing repeated measure\/longitudinal growth models in the context of Neuroscience, Salivary Bioscience, Psychology, and Education. In addition to exploring new methods, Hedyeh teaches advanced statistical methods to researchers via intensive training workshops. More broadly, she is interested in the use of regression models \u2013 particularly in the areas of meta-analysis and with censored salivary data.
<\/div><\/div>
\"\"

Michael Rosario, Ph.D.<\/h4>
Postdoctoral Fellow<\/div>
Michael Rosario earned his PhD in Neuroscience from Boston University in 2023. His research, leveraging the ABCD Study dataset, examines how socioenvironmental factors shape brain health, with a particular focus on how environmental and social exposures interact to influence learning, memory, and the brain regions that support these functions.
<\/div><\/div><\/div>
\"\"

Jessica Morrel, B.A. <\/h4>
Graduate Student<\/div>
Jessica graduated from UVA in 2021 where she studied psychology and mathematics. Following graduation, Jessica served as a research assistant within the Kennedy Krieger Institute\u2019s Center for Autism and Related Disorders. Currently, she is a third-year Ph.D. student within USC\u2019s Neuroscience Graduate Program and is exploring how complex interactions between genetic and environmental factors shape the morphology of brain perivascular spaces during development.
<\/div><\/div>
\"\"

Nate Overholtzer, M.S.<\/h4>
Graduate Student<\/div>
Nate is a fourth-year MD-PhD student at the University of Southern California (USC) Keck School of Medicine. Currently in the second year of his Neuroscience Graduate Program PhD, his research is primarily centered on examining the impact of ADHD medication usage on the development of the adolescent brain, within the context of the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study. Nate also completed his undergraduate studies at USC in 2019, earning a Bachelor of Science in Health Promotion and Disease Prevention and a Master of Science in Global Medicine.
<\/div><\/div>
\"\"

Amanda Del Giacco, Ph.D.<\/h4>\"\"<\/a>
Postdoctoral Fellow<\/div>
Carinna Torgerson graduated from Loyola Marymount University with a BA in Psychology and is currently a PhD candidate in the USC Neuroscience Graduate Program. Her research focuses on the measurement of sex and identity as well as their influence on neurodevelopment and perivascular space.
<\/div><\/div><\/div>
\"\"

Jo Corbett, B.A.<\/h4>
Postbaccalaureate Volunteer<\/div>
Jo graduated from the University of Southern California, receiving their B.A. in Psychology in 2023. Jo is currently a volunteer in the lab as a research assistant working with Dr. Bottenhorn and other lab members to assess adolescent brain development by utilizing the ABCD dataset. Jo is also interested in researching the effects that early life stress may have on the development of executive functioning and functional connectivity.
<\/div><\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div><\/div>

Alumni<\/h2>
\"\"

Jared Schachner, Ph.D.
<\/h4>
Research Scientist<\/div><\/div>
\"\"

Carlos Cardenas-Iniguez, Ph.D.<\/h4>
Postdoctoral Fellow<\/div><\/div>
\"\"

Katherine Bottenhorn, Ph.D.<\/h4>
Postdoctoral Fellow<\/div><\/div><\/div>
\"\"

Claire Campbell, M.S.<\/h4>
Graduate Student<\/div><\/div>
\"\"

Devyn Cotter, M.S.<\/h4>
Graduate Student<\/div><\/div>
\"\"

Carinna Torgerson, B.A.<\/h4>
Graduate Student<\/div><\/div><\/div>
\"\"

Jade Li<\/h4>
Undergraduate Student<\/div><\/div>
\"\"

Yara Akiel<\/h4>
Undergraduate Volunteer<\/div><\/div>
\"\"

Alethea De Jesus, B.S.<\/h4>
Project Assistant<\/div><\/div><\/div>
\"\"

Elisabeth Burner, M.S.<\/h4>
Project Spcialist<\/div><\/div>
\"\"

Kimberly Felix, B.S.<\/h4>
Research Coordinator<\/div><\/div>
\"\"

Anisa Azad, M.S.<\/h4>
Research Assistant<\/div><\/div><\/div>
\"\"

Isabel Buri<\/h4>
USC URAP Student<\/div><\/div>
\"\"

Dora Cserbik<\/h4>
Project Specialist<\/div><\/div>
\"\"

Raymond Jackson<\/h4>
MPH Practicum & Capstone Student<\/div><\/div><\/div>
\"\"

Sandhya Chakravartti<\/h4>
Graduate Student<\/div><\/div>
\"\"

Robert Kim<\/h4>
Volunteer<\/div><\/div>
\"\"

Miguel Jaime<\/h4>
USC URAP Student<\/div><\/div><\/div>
\"\"

Xiaofang Chu<\/h4>
Volunteer<\/div><\/div>
\"\"

Mengyi Li<\/h4>
MPH Practicum & Capstone Student<\/div><\/div>
\"\"

Dania Ruiz<\/h4>
Volunteer<\/div><\/div><\/div>
\"\"

Samah Alothman<\/h4>
MPH Practicum & Capstone Student<\/div><\/div>
\"\"

Michelle Canales<\/h4>
Research Coordinator<\/div><\/div>
\"\"

Adam Mehzer<\/h4>
NGP Student<\/div><\/div><\/div>
\"\"

Cory Johnson<\/h4>
MPH Practicum & Capstone Student<\/div><\/div>
\"\"

Adam Omary<\/h4>
Masters in Biostatistics Student<\/div><\/div>
\"\"

Noor Khalifeh
<\/h4>
Undergraduate Volunteer<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/section>\n\n\n
<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1090","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hertinglab.usc.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hertinglab.usc.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hertinglab.usc.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hertinglab.usc.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hertinglab.usc.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1090"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/hertinglab.usc.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1090\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1373,"href":"https:\/\/hertinglab.usc.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1090\/revisions\/1373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hertinglab.usc.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}