Ruby presented her work, “Integrated phenomenology and brain connectivity demonstrate changes in nonlinear processing in meditation” at Neuroscience at Storrs last week.
She did a fantastic job communicating complex information in a way that was accessible and easy for all to understand! Great job!
Natalie, Heather, and Ruby presented awesome posters at our departmental poster night, Spooktacular. We dressed as the 2026 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for pioneering discoveries concerning optogenetic mice!
Natalie presented “Developmental Timing and Type of Early Life Stress are Associated with Attentional Control in Individuals with Transdiagnostic Mood or Anxiety Symptoms”.
Heather presented “Dimensions of Early Life Stress, Repetitive Negative Thinking, and Attention: Analysis Plan and Preliminary Results”.
Ruby presented “Multimodal investigation of cortical dynamics during advanced concentration absorption meditation jhana: 7T fMRI-based geometric eigenmode decomposition and nonlinear EEG connectivity”.
A big congratulations to Natalie and Heather, who both tied for 1st place in the graduate poster contest!
You all did a fabulous job presenting your work and representing the ACORN lab!
ACORN Lab members made beautiful maple leaf plates on September 30th, 2026 via Firestone’s workshop! We had a great time getting to paint, chat, and eat awesome food!
Lab members Amar, Heather, Caitlin, and Arielle recently attended Flux conference in San Diego, California (Sept 8-10). Each lab member represented our lab amazingly, with Arielle as program co-chair, contributing to shaping the overall experience of the conference, while Amar, Heather, and Caitlin presented their hard work to fellow scientists.
Our postdoc, Dr. Amar Ojha, presented “Combining Precision Functional Mapping with Connectome-Based Predictive Modeling to Characterize the ‘Exposome Network'”.
Graduate student, Heather Robinson, presented “Dimensions of Early Life Stress, Repetitive Negative Thinking, and Attention”.
Graduate student, Caitlin Baten, did a flash talk and presented “Early Adolescent Smartphone Ownership and Cognitive Outcomes”.
Great job!!
The ACORN Lab would like to welcome new members, Ruby, Hannah, Mariem, and Natalie!
Ruby graduated from Northeastern University with a Bachelor of Science in Behavioral Neuroscience. Before joining the ACORN lab, Ruby worked as a Program Manager at the Meditation Research Program at Harvard University in Boston.
Natalie, previously lab manager for the ACORN lab, has begun her graduate journey in the accelerated master’s program in Language and Cognition!
Hannah and Mariem are joining us as undergraduate research assistants to help out with our lab study, MAPLE!
We are so excited to have all of you join our lab this semester!
Lab members Heather Robinson, Amar Ojha, Arielle Keller, and collaborators Dr. Sarah Lichenstein and Dr. Sarah Yip have had their article, “Multivariate environmental exposures are reflected in whole-brain functional connectivity and cognition in youth,” accepted and published in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience. Congratulations on all your hard work!
Click here to read this incredible article!
Our ACORN lab postdoc, Amar Ojha, presented at the 2026 Computational Psychiatry Conference at Yale University in New Haven.
He presented “Anhedonia is Associated with Altered Striatal Neurophysiology and Function in Adolescents Varying in Levels of Depression”.
We are so proud of how well you represented the ACORN lab presenting your phenomenal hard work!
A huge congratulations to Katarina, who just graduated from the University of Connecticut with a Bachelor of Science degree. She majored in Psychological Sciences and double-minored in Neuroscience and Cognitive Science. She will be attending UConn Health as a Ph.D student in the fall.
We are so proud of you, Kat!
For our last Spring 2026 lab meeting, we celebrated with ice cream and a picnic at UConn’s Dairy Bar! Everyone contributed to making this an amazing year in the ACORN lab!
A big congratulations to Heather for successfully defending her Master’s thesis on May 5th, 2026! Your hard work and dedication paved the way for you to achieve this incredible milestone!
