Biography
Maya is a first 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 the neural correlates of 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
Neural mechanisms of worry and anxious freezing
How is anxious freezing expressed across anxious diagnoses?
How does repetitive, negative thought affect our decision-making, perception, and performance under stress?
What are the differences in the ways worry affect different populations?
How do these factors influence internal & external identity formation and emotional expression?
Education
Columbia University, Architecture and Urban Studies, B.A.
Courses Taught
Capstone Research Methods
Additional Campus Affiliations
Stony Brook University
Highlighted Publications
Im, S., Marder, M., Imbriano, G., Mohanty, A. (2020). Dispositional Mindfulness Moderates the Effects of Brief Mindfulness Intervention on Emotional Face Perception. Under Review: Motivation and Emotion.
Donaldson, Kayla R., Novak, Keisha D., Foti, D., Marder, M., Perlman, G. Kotov, R., Mohanty, A. (2019). Predictive Coding in Psychosis: Deficits in Mismatch Negativity are Associated with Psychotic Symptoms Transdiagnostically. Journal of Abnormal Psychology.