arc lab members

Director

Dr. Peter Mezo

mezo

For more information on Dr. Peter Mezo, please visit his bio page.

Graduate Student Researchers

Noelle Warfford, M.A.

Noelle Warfford

Degree: B.S., Psychology (Roanoke College), M.A., Clinical Psychology, (University of Toledo)
Degree in Progress: Ph.D. Clinical Psychology
2019-2024
Graduate Student
Email: Noelle.Warfford@rockets.utoledo.edu

Noelle earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology with a second major in music from Roanoke College in 2019. Prior to joining the ARC Lab, she was a research assistant in the Psychology Department at Roanoke and defended her honors senior thesis titled “Reliability of the Computerized-Trail Making Test, Two Alternative Cue Choice Task, and Computerized-Circle Bisection Task."

Noelle’s primary research interests broadly include psychological assessment and psychometrics, as well as serious and chronic mental illness, especially schizophrenia-spectrum disorders. She is interested in studying ways of assessing self-regulation and self-monitoring skills in populations with serious mental illness.

Publications & Presentations

More Information

Jake Avendano, M.A.

Degree: B.S. Psychology (University of Dayton), M.S. Clinical Neuropsychology (University of Texas at Tyler)
Degree in Progress: Ph.D. Clinical Psychology
2023-2028
Graduate Student
Email: Jacob.Avendano@rockets.utoledo.edu

Jake earned his bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Dayton in 2021 and his master's degree in clinical psychology from the University of Texas at Tyler. Prior to joining the ARC lab, Jake was a research assistant in the Holisitic Emotion Attention Lab (UTTyler Psychology Department) and a lab leader in the Aging Neuropsychology and Technology Lab (UTTyler Psychology Department). Jake was a collaborator on a publication entitled "Resilience, mindfulness, anxiety, and depression within a dual-continua model of mental health approach" among others.

Jake's primary research interest focuses on emotion/regulatory flexibility, more specifically the constructs of context sensitivity and regulation strategy repertoire. Other research interests include measuring emotion dysregulation, suicidality, and rapid emotion regulation processes. His career goal includes gaining employment at a research hospital.

Caroline Born, M.A.

Caroline Born, a graduate student in clinical psychology at The University of Toledo

Degree: B.A. Pre-Medicine & Psychology (Bowling Green State University), M.A. Clinical Psychology (University of Dayton)
Degree in Progress: Ph.D. Clinical Psychology
2023-2028
Graduate Student
Email: Caroline.Born@rockets.utoledo.edu

Caroline earned her bachelor's degree in psychology from Bowling Green State University in 2021 and her master's degree in clinical psychology from the University of Dayton.

Caroline's primary research interest focuses on adaptive regulation/coping skills in populations with severe mental illness, specifically psychotic and related disorders; crisis-related interventions; suicidality and third-wave CBT modalities. Post graduation she hopes to obtain employment working with an inpatient population specifically at a hospital or behavioral health center.

Emma Church, M.A.

Emma Church

Degree: B.A. Psychology, B.A. Anthropology, Minor: Sociology (Cleveland State University), M.A. Clinical Psychology (Cleveland State University)
Degree in Progress: Ph.D. Clinical Psychology
2024-2029
Graduate Student
Email: Emma.Church2@rockets.utoledo.edu

Emma earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology from Cleveland State University in 2021 and her master’s degree in clinical psychology from Cleveland State University in 2024. Prior to joining the ARC Lab, Emma was a research coordinator and assistant in the Mood and Emotion Regulation (MER) Lab (Cleveland State University’s Psychology Department). Emma has also been working as a Research Assistant II and interventionist with the Behavioral Health Research Group (BHRG) (Case Western Reserve University’s School of Medicine) since 2022.

Emma’s primary research interests focus on emotion regulation (both adaptive and maladaptive), self-regulation, and internalizing behaviors in adolescence and emerging/young adulthood. Her other research interests include self-regulated learning, outcomes related to academics/psychopathology, as well as early prevention of and interventions for serious mental illness. Emma’s career goals are to split her time evenly between research and clinical practice, ideally at an academic medical facility.

Graduate alumni

Post-doctoral Fellows & Residents

Hannah Herc, Ph.D. (2022)
Justin Leiter-Mcbeth, Ph.D. (2022)
Kelsey Pritchard, Ph.D. (2021)
- Current Placement: Post-doctoral Fellow (Clinical Health Psychology), Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center, Cleveland, OH

Undergraduate Alumni and Former Members

Onefuwa Akande, B.A. (2024)

Joshua Cahill, B.A. (2022)

Grayling Keune, B.A. (2021)

Nicholas Maricic, B.A. (2021) - University of Akron, Master's program in Clinical Mental Health Counseling

Nicholas' work in the ARC Lab focused on better understanding the role of hope and optimism in ameliorating depressive symptoms. In the past, he volunteered with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northwest Ohio and worked with foster children and African refugee children within Cuyahoga County. Since graduation, Nicholas is furthering his education in graduate training to pursue a career as a clinical mental health counselor.

Mackenzie Cooper, B.A. (2021) - University of Toledo, Master's program in Social Work

Mackenzie joined the ARC Lab to gain experience in the laboratory setting. After graduation, she is now pursuing a career in social work to one day become a therapist. She plans to work with adolescents and adults with an emphasis on work dedicated to communities of color.

Kellyann Navarre, B.A. (2020) - Cleveland State University, Master's program in Clinical Psychology

During Kellyann's lab ensure, her primary research interests involved emotion regulation in the context of borderline personality disorder, self-injury, and suicide. Her secondary interests included disability-related issues, including treatment accessibility, barriers to treatment, and stigma/ableism. Kellyann was involved in the execution and dissemination of studies and their data at multiple local and national conferences.

Kaylynn Frantz, B.A. (2020) - Industry employment

Kaylynn joined the ARC Lab to be more involved in the psychology community at the University of Toledo and to explore the field of psychology outside of the classroom. Her primary interest involved combining her passion for sports and helping others to one day become a sports psychologist.

Madiana Rangel, B.A. (2020) - Clinical Practice

Madiana joined the ARC Lab to acquire research experience with mindfulness. She hopes to work as a clinical psychologist with SMI patients in state facilities. Het interests included severe mental illnesses (SMI; e.g., schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Kelsey Fairchild, B.A. (2020) - Clinical Practice (Psychiatric Nursing)

Prior to joining the ARC Lab, Kelsey worked for Ramapo for Children, a non-profit organization, as a program coordinator for the Staff-Assistant Experience Program. Her role included implementing daily structures for the residential transition-to-independence program designed to assist young adults with social, emotional, or learning challenges. Kelsey assisted in running participants in studies and helping with literature reviews.

Sarah Herr, B.A. (2020) - Clinical Practice

As a long-time research assistant in the ARC Lab, Sarah was involved in the execution and dissemination of studies and their data. She has co-authored several posters which include, "Type of mindfulness meditation and emotion regulation deficits predict state mindfulness outcomes post meditation."

Rippa Sehgal (2019) - University of Toledo, Ph.D. program in Biochemistry

Rippa's interests included learning more about the research processes and experimentation. Her contributions to the ARC Lab included recruitment of community participants, conducting thorough literature reviews, and developing databases to organize such literature.

Ethan Radatz, M.A. (2019) - Clinical Practice

Ethan's interests included emotional regulation and the development of effective coping strategies. His other research interests include humor, prejudice, aggression, and nonviolence. He co-authored several research posters, including is lead-author poster titled "Mindfulness as a mediator to influence social support in students with social anxiety" (Radatz, Pritchard, & Mezo, 2019).

Rana Al-Nahhas (2019) - Howard University, Master's program in Occupational Therapy

At the ARC Lab, Rana's interests were in the effects of avocational interests and physical activity in the regulation of anxiety and depressive disorders. Her contributions include her recruitment of community participants, conducting thorough literature reviews, and developing databases to organize such literature. Outside of the lab, she utilized her skills in Applied Behavior Analysis.

Taylor Shook (2019) - University of Toledo Medical School, M.D. program

As another long-time undergraduate of the ARC Lab, Taylor was involved in several aspects of building research studies and training in physiological measurement and data processing. She co-authored several research posters, in addition to her lead-author poster titled "Self-regulation in emotional affect and self-esteem" (Shook et at., 2017).

Hannah Marshal (2018) - Kent State University, Ph.D. program in Cognitive Psychology

Hannah served as one of the initial long-time members of the ARC Lab, contributing to the lab through literature reviews, creating study materials, piloting studies, and training in physiological measurement. She assisted in producing several research posters, with her most important contribution being her poster titled "Social support mediates the effects of mindfulness on depression" (Marshal et al., 2018), which was awarded as the top poster presentation at the UToledo Department of Psychology first annual Research Showcase.

Raghad Hassabelnaby (2018) - William Paterson University , Psy.D. program in Clinical Psychology

Raghad contributed to the ARC Lab through her initial recruitment of study participants, reviewing critical literature, and assisting in creating study materials. She also co-authored the research poster "Evaluating the validity of the Self-Control and Self-Management Scale in a midwestern student sample" (Herc et al., 2018).

Ben Harrison - Industry Employment

Ben joined the ARC Lab to explore the relationship between emotions, abnormal behaviors, and personality. His contributions to the lab include recruiting student and community participants, processing psychophysiological data, and disseminating findings from the ARC Lab's studies. This includes his initial poster titled "Perceived social support mediates mindfulness and positive affect" (Harrison et al., 2019).

Kajuan Willis - Industry Employment

Kajuan's time in the ARC Lab was guided by her passion to improve the lives of others. Her contributions include creating test materials, reviewing literature, and piloting studies.

Anna Wagenhauser - Industry Employment

Anna's primary research interests in the ARC Lab involved the intersections between psychology and economics. During her time in the ARC Lab, she assisted with the collection and review of research literature, developed materials for use during studies, and presented her own research poster entitled "Understanding promotion versus prevention focused behavior and related self-regulatory processes" (Wagenhauser et al., 2017).

Kaylee Finch - Industry Employment

Kaylee's research interest during her time with the ARC Lab included her focus on depression and emotion regulation, In particular, she contributed to the ARC Lab's initial research poster and she independently completed a review project titled "Emotion Regulation and Depression: An Annotated Bibliography."

Dani Bolovan (2015) - Industry Employment

Dani engaged in several tasks during the foundation of the ARC Lab at UT, including assisting with creating the ARC Lab's initial research presentation entitled "The intersection of self-management with emotion regulation and mindfulness" (Mezo et al., 2016).