I research how emotion and cognition interact in the brain to manage distress. My work focuses on how adapting thoughts/beliefs, attention, awareness of physical sensations, and recalling life experiences (autobiographical memory) can help regulate emotions and build resilience.

I am especially interested in neural mechanisms that older adults use to regulate emotion, given age-related decline in cognitive brain structures. I explore these changes in brain connectivity during task performance and at rest, and dynamics between self-referential networks (Default Mode Network) and cognitive control brain networks (Frontoparietal and Salience Networks) that support coping.

A second line of my research explores regulatory network dynamics in clinical disorders of emotion dysregulation, including Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety. I integrate across multi-modal physiological approaches including neuroimaging (fMRI functional connectivity, pattern classification, diffusion weighted imaging), electrocardiogram (ECG), eyetracking/pupillometry, self-report, and individual difference measures from daily life, to track how emotion-cognition interactions promote adaptive functioning. Other interests include mindfulness interventions in later-life, and managing/coping with chronic pain and illness.