Our Team
Principal Investigators
Erin Hennes
Dr. Erin Hennes is an Assistant Professor of Psychological Sciences and Political Science at Purdue University and the director of both the Social Cognition of Social Justice Lab and the SuperPower Project. Dr. Hennes is also a faculty affiliate of the Purdue Center for the Environment and the Purdue Climate Change Research Center. Dr. Hennes holds a BA in Music, Psychology, and Liberal Arts & Management from Indiana University and a PhD in Social Psychology with a minor in Quantitative Methods from New York University. Following graduation, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles and a Fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
ehennes@purdue.edu
Sean Lane
Dr. Sean Lane’s substantive research focuses on emotion regulation processes, their downstream effects on health and relationship outcomes, and how these processes differ between healthy and clinical subgroups. He applies and develops statistical methodologies, with a focus on nonlinear models and dynamic systems in characterizing these processes. He has also applied these methods in more substantive research, including the optimization of alcohol use disorder classification and the role of alcohol use as an antecedent, consequent, and modifier of emotion regulation processes.
His recent quantitative work on the Superpower project (R01AA027264) involves developing methods for conducting power analyses for complex statistical models, including providing recommendations for starting parameters and feasible ranges under uncertainty. These methods are actively being built into an intuitive user interface guided by principles from user-centered design.
lane84@purdue.edu
Co-Investigators
Robert Proctor
Robert Proctor is a faculty member in the Cognitive Area in the Department of Psychological Sciences. He conducts basic and applied research in the area of attention and performance. His basic research focuses on stimulus-response compatibility, and his applied research is in the areas of human factors and ergonomics, human-computer interaction, and human aspects of cybersecurity and privacy. Dr. Proctor oversees the User-Centered Design team for the SuperPower project.
rproctor@purdue.edu
Douglas Steinley
Doug Steinley, PhD
Professor of Psychological Sciences
University of Missouri
Carol Song
Carol Song is a senior research scientist and director of Scientific Solutions in Research Computing (RCAC) at Purdue University. She received her PhD degree in computer science from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her main research interest focuses on advanced computational and data cyberinfrastructure, having researched in high-performance and distributed computing and led the creation of multiple science gateways (web-based collaborative research platforms). Carol is the Principal Investigator for Purdue’s Anvil national capacity HPC system recently awarded by NSF and has been leading Purdue’s participation in the TeraGrid & XSEDE projects since 2006. She also leads two large data infrastructure projects funded by NSF’s DIBBs and CSSI programs. Carol has funded and mentored more than 60 graduate and undergraduate students over the years and serves as a mentor through programs such as Women in HPC, Practice & Experience in Advanced Research Computing and Supercomputing conferences. She is a co-investigator in the Superpower project, guiding the project to utilize innovative cyberinfrastructure in delivering highly usable and scalable data analysis and visualization capabilities.
cxsong@purdue.edu
Lan Zhao
Lan Zhao is a research scientist in research computing at Purdue University. She has many years of experience with advanced computing and software development. She served in an architect role in multiple funded projects to create collaborative CI solutions enabling interdisciplinary research and education in the areas of climate modeling, hydrology, agricultural economics, isotope modeling, and sustainability engineering. She led the design and development of several science gateways that enable scientific modeling and simulation tools, FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) science cyber training, and data management solutions for streaming high-resolution radar data, real-time satellite images, plant health sensor data, and heterogeneous environmental data. She is also an XSEDE ECSS (Extended Collaborative Support Services) consultant in multiple science gateway projects ranging from using biomechanical imaging modeling to detect tissue deformation to running hydrologic watershed models on XSEDE in support of classroom users.
lanzhao@purdue.edu
Advisory Council
Kristina Jackson
Kristina Jackson, PhD
Professor of Behavioral and Social Sciences
Brown University
Katie Witkiewitz
Katie Witkiewitz, PhD
Professor of Psychology
University of New Mexico
Denis McCarthy
Denis McCarthy, PhD
Professor of Psychological Sciences
University of Missouri
Niall Bolger
Niall Bolger, PhD
Professor of Psychology
Columbia University
Postdoctoral Researchers
Ya-Hsin Hung
Ya-Hsin Hung, PhD (pronounced Ya-Sin) is a postdoctoral assistant on the SuperPower team primarily supervised by Drs. Robert Proctor, Erin Hennes, and Sean Lane. She completed her PhD at Purdue in Industrial Engineering (Human Factors track) in 2019, primarily working with Drs. Steven Landry and Paul Parsons. Her research focuses on assessing emotional engagement with data visualizations, and user experience (UX) evaluation techniques in general. She has worked on the User-Centered Design team for the SuperPower project since 2017.
hung17@purdue.edu
Graduate Research Assistants
Elizabeth Aslinger
Dr. Elizabeth Aslinger is currently a post-doctoral researcher at the Yale School of Medicine. She received her PhD in Mathematical and Computational Psychological Sciences from Purdue in 2022, with a MS in Clinical Psychology. Previously, she graduated from Yale University in 2015 with a BA in political science and in 2019 from Purdue University with an MS in clinical psychology. She conducted post-baccalaureate research in Dr. Scott Lilienfeld's lab at Emory University and Dr. Aidan Wright's lab at the University of Pittsburgh before joining Dr. Sean Lane's lab at Purdue. Elizabeth's interests broadly revolve around the use and development of quantitative methods and computational tools for scientific research, with a particular focus on applications in psychology and neuroscience. Current substantive research areas include the neural and cognitive substrates of psychosis, rejection sensitivity and interpersonal dynamics, personality pathology, trauma, and emotion regulation. Ongoing basic research projects include investigations of the statistical impact of zero-inflation and distributional assumption violations, methodological pitfalls in the development of psychiatric taxonomies, and statistical software development.
easlinge@purdue.edu
Yoon Choi
Yoon Choi joined Dr. Proctor’s Lab at Purdue University as a Ph.D. student in Fall 2019. Before this, at Ewha University in Seoul, South Korea, Yoon finished her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Public Relations & Advertisement. Also, she completed her Master’s degree in Psychology at the same university. She is personally interested in the mechanism behind ideomotor theory and compatibility effect and their possible applications. Recently, she is working on her own 1st-year project and she is also working as an RA for the ‘SuperPower project’. In her spare time, she swims in the COREC and enjoys the sun outside.
choi660@purdue.edu
Fan Wu
Fan Wu joined the SuperPower Lab as a Ph.D. student in January 2020. He completed his BA in Statistics at Wuhan University in China and completed his master’s degree in Statistics at the University of Connecticut. His research interests primarily focus on statistical modeling and deep learning. He is also interested in actuarial projects.
wu1130@purdue.edu
Yueyun Zhang
Yueyun Zhang is a Ph.D. student in Industrial Engineering, primarily working with Dr. Arman Sabbaghi in Applied Statistics and Machine Learning. Her current research involves statistical modeling and optimization for a nanomanufacturing process. This research is conducted under the supervision of Dr. Arman Sabbaghi and involves a collaboration with Dr. Wenzhuo Wu.
zhan2762@purdue.edu
Skye Napolitano
Skye Napolitano joined the Clinical Psychology Ph.D. program at Purdue University in Fall 2019. There, she works with Dr. Sean Lane in the REACT Lab and began working on his and Dr. Hennes’ Superpower project in May 2020. Skye earned her M.A. in Clinical Psychology at Cleveland State University in 2018, where she worked in the Mood and Emotion Regulation Lab with Dr. Ilya Yaroslavsky, studying emotion regulation and trajectories of depression in families. Previously, she earned her B.A. in Psychology with a minor in Statistics at the University of Wyoming in 2014. Her primary research interests include emotion regulation in mood and substance use disorders and Borderline Personality Disorder, psychophysiological and EMA assessment of emotion regulation processes, and transmission, development, and maintenance factors of mood and personality psychopathology.
snapolit@purdue.edu
Ajinkya Mulay
Ajinkya K. Mulay is a PhD student in Electrical and Computer Engineering, primarily working with Dr. Xiaojun Lin. He joined the SuperPower Project in 2020 as a Research Assistant. His research focuses on developing private, secure and federated Machine Learning algorithms. He loves contributing to open-source projects in these topics. Post-graduation, Ajinkya is interested in actively pursuing teaching, research and deployment of privacy-first systems.
mulay@purdue.edu
Yaxin Fang
Yaxin Fang is a PhD student in the Department of Statistics. She joined SuperPower group in summer 2021. She is interested in topics related to applied statistics and sequential decision making. In her leisure time, she likes watching movies, hiking, playing with her cat and listening to K-pop (She’s a big fan of TWICE).
fang230@purdue.edu
Mairéad Willis
Mairéad Willis is a PhD student in the clinical psychology program at Purdue, and was previously the SuperPower Project Coordinator from 2019 to 2021. She holds a BA in Neuroscience and Behavior with a minor in Irish Language and Literature from the University of Notre Dame and an MA in Creative Writing from the National University of Ireland, Cork. While at Notre Dame, she spent two years as a research assistant in the Cognition, Emotion, and Emotional Disorders Lab under Dr. Lira Yoon, where she participated in laboratory research investigating the effect of stress on cognitive performance. In addition to her work on the SuperPower project, Mairéad has volunteered as a research assistant on the Blackberry Project under Dr. Marion Underwood and in the REACT lab under Dr. Sean Lane during her time at Purdue. Mairéad's research interests include the effect of social context on internalizing disorders, dissemination of evidence-based treatments for these disorders, and best practices for experimental design and data analysis.
mawillis@purdue.edu
Madeline Peyton
Madeline Peyton is a Master's student in Biostatistics at IUPUI. Madeline graduated from Purdue University with a Bachelor’s in Applied Statistics in 2021. She has been a member of the SuperPower Laboratory since 2020. Madeline hopes to use her passion and knowledge of statistics to make an impact on the public health industry, specifically within Alzheimer’s research. Upon graduation, she plans to pursue a career in the pharmaceutical industry.
lonis@purdue.edu
Staff
Yanzi Huang, Project Coordinator
Yanzi Huang is the SuperPower Project Coordinator. She received a BS in Applied Psychology from Hong Kong Baptist University in 2018, and a MA in Psychology from New York University in 2020. She is interested in understanding how top-down factors (e.g., attitudes, stereotypes, ideology) shape social perception and intergroup relations, with a particular focus on issues related to gender and racial biases. Her previous research experience concerns the impacts of social group membership on one’s perceptual, psychological, and social experience. In her MA thesis, she employed an intersectional approach examining how people perceive female leaders who violate gender stereotypes. She was the lab manager of Dr. Hennes’s Social Cognition of Social Justice Lab from 2020 to 2021, and now remains as a research assistant in the lab. She is applying to Social Psychology PhD programs in Fall 2021.
huan1654@purdue.edu
I Luk Kim, Software Engineer
I Luk Kim is a senior computational scientist in Research Computing department at Purdue University, also a PhD student in Computer Science at Purdue University. I Luk received a BE in Computer Software from Kwangwoon University in 2010, and a ME in Information Security from Korea University in 2012. He is interested in web and system security using program analysis techniques.
kim1634@purdue.edu
Alec Pedersen, Post-Bac Research Assistant
Alec Pedersen is a Spring 2021 graduate of Purdue University with majors in Psychology and Law & Society. He joined the SuperPower lab in the Fall of 2020. His main research interests are in how personality interacts with psychopathology. Specifically, he is interested in (1) how personality interacts with psychedelic assisted therapy in predicting intervention outcomes, (2) personality change after psychedelic assisted therapy, and (3) the Dark Triad. He plans to pursue a PhD in Clinical Psychology in the future.
pedersea@purdue.edu
Undergraduate Research Assistants
Katelyn Wasson
Katelyn Wasson is a sophomore studying Applied Statistics and Psychology at Purdue University. She joined the SuperPower Lab in 2021. She is interested in statistical methods and analysis, experimental design, and cognitive and social psychology. After completing her undergraduate education, Katelyn plans to attend graduate school.
kawasson@purdue.edu
Hang Wang
Hang Wang is a senior double majoring in Mathematics and Computer Science with a Machine Learning track and minoring in Psychology. He joined the SuperPower Lab in Fall 2021. He is interested in developing and applying machine learning algorithms to solving meaningful real-world problems. After completing his undergraduate degree, Hang plans to pursue a PhD in a Machine Learning related field.
Shreyansh Agrawal
Shreyansh Agrawal is an undergraduate student at Purdue University double majoring in Data Science and Finance. He joined the SuperPower Lab project in Summer 2022. Shreyansh is very passionate about the intersection of statistics and psychology. He will be working on the software testing and coding team over the summer.
agraw173@purdue.edu