People: Lab Members

Lab Director

David A. Sbarra

I am the EOS Foundation Endowed Chair in Health Psychology and Professor of Psychology at the University of Arizona, where I direct the Laboratory for Social Connectedness and Health. I am a licensed clinical psychologist and served for 10 years as Director of Clinical Training at the University of Arizona. I’m a past president of the Academy of Psychological Clinical Science and former Editor of Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science. My research focuses on social connectedness and health.

Research Scientist

Ashley Kuelz

I am a research scientist in the Social Connectedness and Health Lab. I received my PhD from the University of Arizona in 2023 and previously completed a postdoctoral fellowship with the Harvard Study of Adult Development. My research focuses on the intersection of biological, psychological, and socio-environmental factors to understand how individual vulnerabilities and relational contexts jointly shape health and well-being.

Postdoctoral Fellows

Shanshan Ma

I am a postdoctoral researcher for the Connected Lives: Overcoming the Self through Empathy (CLOSE) Study under the joint mentorship of Dr. David Sbarra and Dr. Jessica Andrews-Hanna. I completed my Ph.D. in psychology at Beijing Normal University, where my research focused on the neural mechanisms through which marital interactions and responses to the social world influence relationship well-being. My research interests center on integrating behavioral and neuroimaging approaches to investigate the facilitators and barriers to social connection and mental health.

Riley Marshall

I am a postdoctoral researcher on the behavioral genetic study (the BiG study). My PhD is in Brain and Cognitive Sciences, with an emphasis on developmental psychology and behavioral genetics. My research interests are in using genetically-informed methods to understand why people have different relationship experiences and perceptions (e.g., loneliness) as well as effects of relationship experiences on health and well-being.

Doctoral Students

Anoushka Chowdhary

I am a fourth-year Clinical Psychology PhD student with a minor in Health Psychology and Behavioral Medicine. I earned my bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of Chicago (2019) and my master’s degree from the University of Arizona (2025). My research examines psychosocial influences on physical health, with a focus on sleep and chronic pain.

Kayleigh Rhodes

I am a graduate student in the Clinical Psychology doctoral program. I earned my BS in Psychological Science from the University of Arizona in 2023 and worked as project coordinator for the Connected Lives: Overcoming the Self through Empathy (CLOSE) study under Dr. Sbarra and Dr. Andrews-Hanna from 2023 to 2025. My interests include romantic relationships, social support, and empathy in relation to individual and community health, with a growing interest in culturally attuned, critical approaches to relationship science.

Samantha Weiss

I am currently a graduate student in Social Psychology with a minor in Health Psychology & Behavioral Medicine. I graduated with my BS in Neuroscience from Arizona State University in 2023, and earned my MA in Psychology from Baylor in 2025. I am interested in the bidirectional influences of social relationships (i.e. social connection, romantic relationships, friendships, social interactions) and measures of health, including epigenetic changes, biological aging, and immune function.

Shuai Yang

I am a PhD student in Epidemiology at the University of Arizona, with a minor in Health Psychology. My research interests include mental health, lifestyle factors, genetics, and their links to chronic disease and cognitive aging. My work leverages large-scale cohorts and biobanks—including UK Biobank, NIH All of Us, the Million Veteran Program (MVP), SHARE, and FinnGen—to study risk factors and health outcomes.

Staff

Madeline Cherri

I am the project coordinator for the Connected Lives: Overcoming the Self through Empathy (CLOSE) study. I earned my bachelor’s degrees in Neuroscience & Cognitive Science and Psychology from the University of Arizona (2025). I am interested in how relationship quality influences health and wellbeing from a dyadic perspective, including factors that shape relationship satisfaction, neurofeedback dynamics in intimate partner interactions, and how attachment theory can be applied to build secure attachment in adulthood.

Janice Hayhoe

I am the Senior Research Psychometrist on the Behavioral Genetics Social Relationships Twin Study (BiG), primarily conducting neuropsychological evaluations. Motivated by an interest in how the neurological underpinnings of cognition and behavior can ultimately lead to improvements in people’s quality of life, I am currently examining the role social cognition plays in cognitive processes and biological aging. I completed my BA in neuroscience with a minor in music from Wellesley College, and currently serve as a graduate research assistant in Dr. Huggins’ CATS Lab as part of the Neuroimaging Research Certificate program.

Zach Nichols

I am a psychometrist on the behavioral genetics study (the BiG study). I obtained a BS in psychology at the University of Arizona in 2024. I am interested in how improvements with communication skills and empathy can enhance the quality of romantic relationships.

Abhiram Nandimandalam

I am a Data Scientist in the Laboratory for Social Connectedness and Health at the University of Arizona. I recently earned my M.S. in Data Science and a Graduate Certificate in Natural Language Processing from the University of Arizona. My work focuses on developing AI-driven methods, reproducible research workflows, and computational tools that support behavioral and health research. I am passionate about building trustworthy AI systems that accelerate scientific discovery and enable evidence-based psychological research.