Biography
Maya is a third year doctoral student working with Dr. Wendy Heller. Following a slightly unconventional path, Maya pursued a B.A. in Architecture from Columbia University, and worked as an architect, a pastry chef specializing in sugar & chocolate showpiece design, and in business development before turning to Psychology. Prior to UIUC, Maya served as the Lab Coordinator for the Neuroscience, Emotion, Cognition & Psychopathology lab at Stony Brook University, supervised by Dr. Aprajita Mohanty. Focusing on neural activation associated with threat perception in anxiety, Maya quickly gravitated towards the intersection of neural function and emotional expression.
In her free time, Maya loves traveling, soccer & basketball, singing & dancing, cooking (but mostly eating), drawing, a good Netflix binge and being near the water.
Research Interests
How is cognition and performance affected by repetitive negative thinking?
What are the differences in the ways worry affect different identities?
How does repetitive, negative thought affect our decision-making, perception, and performance under stress?
Cognition and neural activation correlated with anxiety-related freeze behavior
How is anxious freezing externally measured?
Can we distinguish freeze response from imminent dangerous threat?
What patterns of cognition and neural activation are associated to "less-severe" threat processing?
Education
Columbia University, Architecture and Urban Studies, B.A.
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Psychology, M.S.
Awards and Honors
Teacher Rated as Outstanding - 2019, 2020
Courses Taught
Capstone Research Methods
Additional Campus Affiliations
Stony Brook University, Columbia University
Recent Publications
Im, S., Marder, M. A., Imbriano, G., Sussman, T., Mohanty, A. (2021). Effects of a Brief Mindfulness-based Attentional Intervention on Threat-Related Perceptual Decision-Making. Mindfulness. doi: 10.1007/s12671-020-01562-9.
Donaldson, K. R., Novak, K. D., Foti, D., Marder, M., Perlman, G., Kotov, R., & Mohanty, A. (2020). Associations of mismatch negativity with psychotic symptoms and functioning transdiagnostically across psychotic disorders. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 129, 570 –580. http:// dx.doi.org/10.1037/abn0000506