Lab Manager: Nieva Strong
Nieva is a senior psychology student at Montana State University. She has been with the SARAH lab for almost two years as both a research assistant and lab manager. Nieva plans on attending medical school to pursue an MD-PhD in psychiatry. Her research interests include the examination of subclinical eating disorder features and the connection between psychology and nutritional well-being.
Awards/Honors:
-Outstanding Psychology Undergraduate (2023)
-Undergraduate Scholars Program Grant (2022, 2023)
Graduate Student: Cory Counts
Cory is a Gallatin County native in his fourth year of graduate school at Montana State University. He has been with the SARAH Lab for six years, two as a research assistant and four as a graduate student. Research interests include early family environments, physiology, stress, sleep, and health-promoting behaviors.
Awards/Honors:
-Outstanding Psychology Undergraduate Year (2017-2018)
-Presidential Emerging Scholars Grant (2018)
-APS Scholar's Award (2019)
-Outstanding Performance in Research Award- Psychology Department
Graduate Student: Jade Larsen
Jade is a second-year graduate student at Montana State University and has been with the SARAH Lab for the past two years. She previously completed her Bachelors degree in Chemistry. Research interests include the cognitive and physiological components of trauma and the potential resilience factors provided by mindfulness and gratitude. Her research goals seek to understand how reframing to enhance the latter factors may mitigate negative responses to recalling trauma. She is also interested in exploring healing modalities informed by indigenous wisdom. early family environments, physiology, stress, sleep, and health-promoting behaviors.
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Graduate Student: Zack Wood
Zack is in his second year of the Ph.D. program here at Montana State University. He previously graduated from MSU with a B.S. in Psychology in 2021. His research interests include value formation, development of civic engagement across contexts, and civic engagement as it relates to health outcomes. Outside of school, Zack enjoys backpacking, fishing, and skiing.
Lab Alumni: Taylor Kampf
Taylor began working in the SARAH lab fall of 2018 as a research assistant and managed the lab from Spring 2020 to Spring 2022. She is currently her Master's degree at Arizona State University, studying human systems engineering with a user experience concentration. Taylor plans to apply her passion for research, statistics, and human cognition to the industry by working as a user experience researcher to help make products and services more user-centric.
Honors/awards:
Outstanding Psychology Undergraduate Award (2020-2021)
Undergraduate Scholars Program Travel Grant (2020)
Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Scholar (2019)
Undergraduate Scholars Program Grant (2019)
Lab Alumni: Courtney Tintzman
A former graduate research assistant within the SARAH Lab, Courtney recently defended her dissertation and became the second graduate of the Ph.D. program in the psychology department. In her time in the SARAH Lab, she mainly examined the relationship between the subjective experience of vitality, perceived stress, and health, which was the focus of her dissertation, titled “Putting The Vital In Vitality: Establishing The Link Between The Phenomenological Experience Of Vitality And Patterns Of Blood Pressure In The Laboratory And Daily Life.” Following graduation, Courtney left academia to pursue her dream career: a user research position at a large software development company, where she gets to utilize her breadth of methodological, statistical, and analytical knowledge every day.
Awards/Honors:
-Meritorious Award, 2016, Montana State University
-First Year Graduate Student of the Year, 2017, Montana State University
-PhD Enhancement Fund/Fellowship, 2018, Montana State University
LaLab Alumni: Eric Ashmore
Eric was with the SARAH Lab for three years, one as a research assistant and two as lab manager. He will be attending graduate school at the University of Nebraska Omaha with a concentration in occupational health. He has been interested the incorporation of health psychology principles and methodology into the industrial and organizational psychology field. Eric enjoys hiking and spending time with friends in his free time.