Lab Mission and Values

The mission of the Affective Neuroscience Laboratory is to make a lasting impact on the lives of people experiencing deleterious effects of trauma, anxiety, and other internalizing disorders, as well as those experiencing chronic stress due to structural and systemic injustice. We are driven to understand the neurobiological and socioenvironmental factors that contribute to emotion regulation, stress responding, coping with stress, and resilience.

We aim to accomplish this mission following guiding core values:
• A commitment to rigorous scholarship and scientific inquiry
• Working as a team, collaboratively, to support each other in our work
• Engaging in continuous growth and new learning
• Offering opportunities for developing the next generation of scientists and psychologists, and supporting trainees in meeting their personal goals
• Together, all members of the laboratory strive to create an environment that is welcoming, inclusive of individuals from all backgrounds and identities, and anti-discriminatory.

Commitment to Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

We strive to embrace and respect the identities and experiences of all, including our lab team members and collaborators, our participants, and our partners. This includes individuals who identify as historically excluded or marginalized, including those who identify as Black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC), and identities relating to sexual orientation, gender identity, disability status, socioeconomic status, nationality, immigration status, religion, and spirituality, and with respect to people’s intersecting identities, both visible and invisible.

With respect to our research, we often include participants from marginalized and minoritized communities in our studies, including individuals from underinvested neighborhoods and those who identify as racial/ethnic minorities. We do so because science has historically excluded and exploited these communities, which is both unjust and leads to science that does not validly characterize the experience of individuals holding these identities. Moreover, individuals, such as those in our studies, who are racial/ethnic minorities and from lower socioeconomic positions have long been exposed to high levels of stress and trauma due to structural injustice. As researchers with a focus on trauma and well-being, we believe it is important to ensure inclusion of under-served communities, and to conduct research that shines a light on the experience of marginalized and oppressed communities in order to identify factors that bolster resilience, inform appropriate interventions, and ultimately policies that aim to heal trauma and dismantle oppression.

Our laboratory is also committed to building a more diverse scientific community. We strongly encourage individuals from historically excluded and marginalized groups to apply to join our team. We welcome trainees at all levels – high school, undergraduate, volunteer, postbaccalaureate, graduate, and postdoctoral. We strive to work together to create an atmosphere that is supportive of all, and helps everyone reach their goals. We also share tangible support, such as opportunities for fellowships, support for applying to graduate school, the opportunity to connect with other scientists we collaborate with, and opportunities to conduct research with data collected from diverse populations.

A core tenet of our work as a team is to recognize that we can all continue to learn and grow. With respect to social justice, equity, and inclusion, we engage in intentional discussions about structures and practices that have sustained inequities in areas relevant to our participants and team members, including mental health and representation in academia. We engage in ongoing learning activities and discussions about marginalization and oppression, and ways that we can work against such discrimination and harm. Our goals of fostering and advancing diversity, equity, inclusion and justice are a long-term commitment. Thus, while we have anchored our stated mission and values in work we are currently engaging in, we recognize that there is always room to learn and that it is important for our mission to be both grounded in our current state and aspirational to motivate growth.