Dr. Hakun received his Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Rowan University in 2002. He went on to receive a Master’s degree in Social Work at Rutgers University in 2004. After four years working as research assistant and analyst at the Treatment Research Center (TRC) at University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Hakun attended Michigan State University where he received a Masters degree in Psychology in 2011 and a PhD in Psychology in 2013 working with advisor Dr. Susan Ravizza. Dr. Hakun was a Post-Doctoral Scholar with Dr. Brian Gold at University of Kentucky from 2013-2015 in the Department of Neuroscience and an Assistant Teaching Professor of Psychology at Penn State University from 2015-2019.

In 2019, Dr. Hakun joined the faculty in the Department of Neurology at Penn State University College of Medicine as an Assistant Professor. He is an affiliated faculty member of the Translational Brain Research Center (TBRC) at PSU College of Medicine and the Center for Healthy Aging at PSU College of Health & Human Development. Dr. Hakun also maintains a joint appointment with PSU Departments of Psychology and Public Health Sciences.

Dr. Elbich received his Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from The Pennsylvania State University in 2011. Following this, he worked for two years as a lab manager focusing on studying behavioral and neural individual differences in face recognition ability. His Masters thesis employed effective connectivity to quantify functional network properties of the face perception network through graph theory and pattern analysis. For his dissertation in cognitive psychology, Dr. Elbich investigated the neural representation faces within the magnocellular and parvocellular pathways using multivoxel pattern analysis, or MVPA.

In 2020, he joined the CAMP lab as a Postdoctoral Scholar. His areas of interest include visual processing, memory, and aging. Additionally he has a wide range of experience with multiple modalities of MRI, including structural MRI, functional connectivity, and diffusion MRI.

Dr. Jessie Alwerdt received her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Southern Illinois University of Edwardsville in 2010, where she began her interest in cognitive aging. Jessie continued her research in aging by pursuing an MS in Aging and Neuroscience in 2013 and a PhD in Aging Studies in 2016 from the University of South Florida. In her graduate research, Jessie took a biopsychosocial approach to health issues and cognitive aging that entailed cardiovascular health and nutrition. She has been at Penn State University since late 2016, where she currently bridges between the Center for Healthy Aging and the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences Metabolomics in a Postdoctoral Scholar role. In 2020, she joined the Mobile Monitoring of Cognitive Change (M2C2) team and the CAMP lab in 2021 to assist with project management.

Erin is in her second year of her Masters of Public Health (MPH) degree concentrating in Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Penn State College of Medicine. Prior to her MPH, she received a Bachelor’s of Science from Penn State University in May of 2021 where she majored in Biobehavioral Health. During her time at Penn State, she was involved in a number of academic pursuits including both learning and teaching assistant positions within the Chemistry and Biobehavioral Health departments. Throughout her time at the College of Medicine, she has been involved in public health research focusing on women of reproductive age and COVID-19. Her interest in cognitive aging began in her undergraduate experience at Penn State, and she is looking forward to beginning her professional research experience as a project coordinator with the CAMP lab.

Jennifer received her Bachelor of Science in Biopsychology from Messiah University in 2021. As an undergraduate student, she worked as a research assistant evaluating interventions for PTSD. Her research also included investigating associations between aromatherapy and cognitive performance in college-age students. Prior to beginning her undergraduate studies, Jennifer worked as a personal trainer where she became interested in associations between self-reported cognitive performance and healthy behaviors such as physical activity and stress reduction. Additionally, Jennifer developed a deep interest in cognitive aging as she watched family members manage with Alzheimer’s Disease and Vascular Dementia. In November of 2021, she joined the CAMP lab as a project coordinator where her work is focused on the early detection of risk for dementia and prevention of advanced cognitive decline.

Dr. Libby received a BA in Psychology with honors from the University of Wisconsin Madison in 2011 and spent the next three years working as a research coordinator at the University of Pennsylvania Positive Psychology Center. Libby completed her doctorate in the department of Human Development and Family Studies at Penn State in 2021, working under the mentorship of Dr. Nilam Ram. Her research program includes developing, adapting and applying existing quantitative methods for studying emotion, self-regulation, psychological well-being, and physical health across the lifespan. In particular, Libby is interested in dynamical systems theories and methods for studying intraindividual variability and change across multiple time scales. Data visualization has also become an important component of her work as a way to better understand these processes, generate new ideas, and to use as a tool for scientific communication. Libby worked as a graduate assistant in CAMP lab during 2020-2021 and is now a post-doctoral research fellow at the TSET Health Promotion Research Center of The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center.

Joanna Colgan received her Bachelor’s degrees from Penn State University in nursing, anthropology, and international studies, with a focus on cultural competency and medical anthropology. She earned her Master’s from Penn State in Kinesiology in 2016, concentrating in behavioral health. Joanna then worked as an emergency department RN at a rural hospital, observing firsthand how high rates of chronic disease affect both patients’ fitness and quality of life and our healthcare system overall. From 2018 through 2020, she has worked as Research Manager with the CAMP lab and PSU’s Center for Healthy Aging. Her passions include preventative and behavioral health, promoting healthy lifestyles, reducing chronic illness and cognitive decline, and cultural competency.

Erika VanDyke received a B.A. in Psychology from Millersville University in 2015. She later went on to receive her Master of Public Health from the University of Maryland School of Medicine in 2018. After graduation, she worked for two years as a research assistant in the Department of Pediatrics/Division of Growth and Nutrition at the University of Maryland on a school-based obesity prevention project. Erika was a Project Manager in the CAMP laboratory during 2020-2021 and is currently a Project Manager in the PSU CoM Qualitative and Mixed Methodology Core. Additionally, she is a Doctor of Public Health candidate at Penn State College of Medicine. Her areas of interest include policy and program development, obesity prevention, and physical activity promotion.