Angela Fang, Ph.D. 

Lab Director

Dr. Fang is an Associate Professor with Tenure in the Department of Psychology at the University of Washington. She received her A.B. in Psychological and Brain Studies from Dartmouth College in 2007, and her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Boston University in 2014. After completing her predoctoral clinical internship and postdoctoral fellowship at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, she continued on as faculty and as a licensed clinical psychologist in the Department of Psychiatry OCD and Related Disorders Program. As Director of the Center of Neuroscience, Neuroendocrinology, & Clinical Translation (CoNNeCTLab), Dr. Fang is focused on understanding the brain and psychological mechanisms underlying social and emotional processing in anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorders using an array of techniques including neuroimaging, neuroendocrine assays, pharmacology, and behavioral/self-report assessment. In particular, she is interested in aspects of social cognition (e.g., self-focused attention) that go awry in psychiatric disorders, and translating knowledge of the neuroscience and psychology of these processes to inform clinical applications.

Office: Kincaid 445 | Email: angfang@uw.edu | CV | Faculty Website

Nathan Sackett, M.D., M.S.

Psychiatrist

Dr. Sackett is an addiction psychiatrist and Acting Assistant Professor in the University of Washington Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences. Clinically, he works with patients who struggle with both primary psychiatric disorders and substance use disorders primarily in a busy academic outpatient clinic. Nathan is also the co-director of the Center for Novel Therapeutics in Addiction Psychiatry, a translational research center focusing on examining psychedelics as augmenting agents of behavioral interventions to treat addiction. Nathan is the Principal Investigator of a Washington-state funded clinical trial exploring the use of psilocybin in high-risk patient populations.

Yuchen Zhao

Graduate Student in Clinical Psychology

Office: Kincaid 447 | Email: yczhao@uw.edu

Emily Iannazzi

Graduate Student in Clinical Psychology

Emily is a fourth-year Ph.D. student in the Adult Clinical Psychology program at the University of Washington. She received her B.A. in Psychology with a Clinical Concentration from Boston College, where she researched memory and emotion, conducting her senior honors thesis on retrieval-induced forgetting with autobiographical, negative memories. As an undergraduate, Emily also worked for St. Vincent’s Health Partners where she helped monitor patient risk and treatment using EHRs. She then moved on to Harvard University where she worked in the Buckner Laboratory, gaining extensive experience with functional and structural neuroimaging and learning about brain network connectivity, neuropsychiatric dysfunction, and actigraphy data. At Harvard, she also worked in the Affective Neuroscience and Development Lab on the Human Connectome Project in Development. Her PhD interests include adversity and trauma, in particular using a multifaceted and interdisciplinary approach at the individual level to better understand stress, anxiety, and fear. In her free time, Emily enjoys being around animals, drawing, playing board games, and knitting/crocheting.

Office: Kincaid 447 | Email: eiann@uw.edu

Gillian Grennan

Graduate Student in Neuroscience

Gillian is a fourth-year PhD student in the Graduate Program for Neuroscience at the University of Washington. She received her B.Sc. in Cognitive Science with an emphasis in Behavioral Neuroscience from the University of California, San Diego. Here, she joined the Neural Engineering and Translational Lab (NEATLabs) where she utilized EEG in concert with cognitive behavioral assessments to uncover neural correlates of psychiatric diseases. Specifically, she focused on mechanisms of aversive behaviors that could be translated into treatments for depression, anxiety, and PTSD. Her current PhD interests focus on combining neuroimaging techniques (specifically fMRI) with psychometric modeling (such as through drift diffusion modeling, and dynamic causal modeling) and cognitive modeling (such as the cognitive architecture ACT-R) to assess underlying neurobiological differences of social anxiety versus healthy controls during social fear learning with the goal of eventually improving the efficacy of current psychiatric treatments. On the weekends and after work you can find her hiking, camping, playing volleyball, or running around the many parks in Seattle!

Office: Kincaid 447 | Email: gillkg@uw.edu

Yuqing Lei

Graduate Student in Clinical Psychology

Yuqing is a first-year PhD student in the Clinical Psychology program at the University of Washington. She received her B.A. from Scripps College with a dual major in Neuroscience and Psychology, and a minor in Computer Science. She later earned her Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuroscience and Systems from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2024. With a background in computational psychiatry and developmental cognitive psychology, Yuqing is interested in applying translational neuroscience approaches to the clinical world. She is also committed to promoting Asian American mental health. Outside of the lab, you might find her singing, playing board games, or spending time in a climbing gym.

Office: Kincaid 447 | Email: ylei1@uw.edu

Chelsea Uddenberg

Graduate Student in Clinical Psychology

Chelsea is a first-year PhD student in the Clinical Psychology program at the University of Washington starting in Fall 2025. She received her bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Yale University, where she conducted a network analysis of self-conscious emotions and eating disorder symptoms in adolescents for her senior honors thesis. After graduating, she gained experience in computational modelling of mood dynamics and decision-making data in the Rutledge Lab, working on a project investigating reward mechanisms underlying nicotine addiction. Chelsea is interested in understanding social and non-social reward and learning mechanisms involved in transdiagnostic processes such as emotion dysregulation and avoidance. In her free time, she enjoys going on beach hikes, singing and playing video games.

Office: Kincaid 447 | Email:

Elliot Collins MD, PhD

Resident Psychiatrist

Dr. Collins is a 4^th year resident psychiatrist in the research track in UW’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. He completed undergraduate degrees at UW before moving to Pittsburgh, PA to continue training. He completed his PhD, dissertation entitled Neural and Representational Origins of Visual Expertise at Carnegie Mellon University while also completing his MD at the University of Pittsburgh. Returning to Seattle in 2021 for psychiatry training, he plans to pursue a translational neuroscience career developing better diagnostic tools for those suffering from mental illness. When not at work, you’ll catch him on a bike somewhere in the great outdoors of the PNW.

Xiaoqian Xiao, PhD

Postdoctoral Scholar

Maggie Sarkisova

Research Coordinator

Maggie recently graduated from the University of Washington with a B.S in Psychology. She has had a variety of experiences ranging from research to clinical. Her main interests in the field of psychology include child and adolescent development, anxiety disorders, and autism spectrum disorder. She enjoys working with children and hopes in the future to provide more support and continue research on optimal therapies for children. As a research coordinator at the CoNNeCTLab she hopes to grow as a researcher that can help her reach her goal of achieving a Ph.D. in Developmental or Clinical Psychology. In her free time, Maggie enjoys taking care of her plants, cooking some fun new recipes, and loves a good thrifting adventure with her friends.

Office: Kincaid 444 | Email: msark@uw.edu

Randhara Kotuwelle

Research Coordinator

Randhara graduated from UCLA in 2022 with a B.A. in Psychology and Minor in Brain and Behavioral Health. She has experience working as a research coordinator in clinical and behavioral neuroscience research settings. Her research interests particularly lie in child and adolescent developmental psychology. At the CoNNeCT Lab, she looks forward to expanding her research skill set, contributing to innovative projects, and collaborating with the team. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, working on a Paint-By-Numbers project or a puzzle, and spending time with friends.

Office: Kincaid 444 | Email: rkotu@uw.edu

Catherine Zhang

Undergraduate Honors Student

Catherine is a junior honors student pursuing a B.A. Psychology major and a mathematics minor at the University of Washington. Her interest centers around the intersection of mathematics and psychological concepts, particularly within a clinical context. She enjoys the process of learning and developing computational skills that could support interpretation of complex neural processes such as learning and decision making. Also, she is drawn to using mathematical analysis to gain insights into clinical conditions and potentially advance interventions and treatments. After graduation, she aims to pursue a clinical PhD and continue her studies on computational applications to clinical research with a goal to improve challenges within clinical populations. In her free time, Catherine enjoys going to concerts, shooting film photography, and cooking Shanghai dishes!

Office: Kincaid 444 | Email: cathez@uw.edu

Morgan Opdahl

Undergraduate Honors Student

Morgan is a junior double majoring in Neuroscience and Psychology, where he finds fulfillment in exploring the intersectionality of these fields. His preeminent interest lies in improving the quality of life among individuals facing mental health challenges. In light of this, he seeks to use neuroscience to elucidate the underpinning mechanisms of psychopathologies and their treatments. Within CoNNeCT, he seeks to better his understanding of neuroscientific tools (such as EEG, fMRI, ect.) and their applications in studying outcomes for individuals with BDD and SAD. Upon graduation he plans to continue his research by pursuing a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology. For fun, Morgan loves hanging out with his cats, listening to music, and trying new restaurants and recipes with friends.

Office: Kincaid 444 | Email: morganic@uw.edu

ALUMNI

Ken Kavin, Undergraduate Honors Student

Cecilia Mustelin, Undergraduate Honors Student

Jessica Crane, Research Coordinator

Nikita Nerkar, Undergraduate Honors Student

Isabel Flynn, Undergraduate Research Assistant

Serenity Greene, Visiting STAR Researcher

Jennifer Mosley, Lab Manager