2024-2025 Carolina affective science lab

casl alumni reunite to celebrate big life milestones!

Drs. Joseph Leshin, Jennifer MacCormack, Kristen Lindquist and Holly Shablack celebrate together at the wedding of Dr. Joshua Jackson (not pictured).

Graduate student Michelle Shipkova defended her MA thesis!

Dujana Bujeis presents her research project at the UNC undergraduate celebration of research

Dujana will perform her senior honors thesis in the lab next year!

Jennifer Fan presents her research project from her Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship at the UNC Undergraduate Celebration of Research

Jennifer will perform her senior honors thesis in the lab next year!

Nina Song presents at the UNC Undergraduate CELEBRATION of research

Nina will perform her senior honors thesis in the lab next year!

Thesis students Mia Foglesong and Adelaide Harper present their final theses

Mia is going to be a post-baccalaureate researcher at the NIMH in the fall!

Adelaide is applying to post-baccalaureate research positions and intends to apply to PhD positions in neuroscience!

Thesis student Carson St. Denis presents his final thesis poster

Carson is applying to medical school in May!

Carson St. Denis Successfully defended his senior honors thesis!

Adelaide harper successfully defended her senior honors thesis!

the casl presents at the society for affective science!

2023-2024 Carolina Affective Science Lab

Congrats to Dr. Leshin!

Lab dinner to celebrate Dr. Leshin

Congrats to Dr. Leshin, who defended his dissertation and will graduate in August!

members of the casl celebrate mallory’s wedding day

CASL members Natalie Frye, Dr. Kristen Lindquist, Adrienne Bonar, Gaby Alvarez, and collaborators Tatum Jolink, Catherine Berman, Asli Imamoglu, Taylor West and Dr. Keely Muscatell celebrated the wedding of lab member Mallory Feldman in June.

Senior thesis student, Amrita Mani, presenting her final thesis poster

Amrita will start medical school at Pitt in the fall.

lab dinner at sas

The CASL united with the labs of Erik Nook, Maria Gendron, Ajay Satpute and Maital Neta to celebrate being together at SAS again!

mallory feldman presents a flash talk at society for affective science

natalie frye presents at society for affective science

sree gogineni presents at society for affective science

sr honors thesis student amrita mani presents at society for affective science

michelle shipkova presents at society for affective science

the casl presents at the unc science expo

The 2022-2023 Carolina Affective Science Lab

First in-person photo since 2019!

The CASL says goodbye to Mai!

We said goodbye to visiting scholar Mai Mikkelsen over pizza and beer.

mj carter presents her honors thesis poster

Senior Honors student, MJ Carter, presented her honors thesis at the annual Psychology and Neuroscience poster session.

lab members honored at UNC Psych & Neuro award ceremony

Lab undergraduate members MJ and Dujana and graduate student Mallory were honored for their research and service at the annual Psychology and Neuroscience Department award ceremony.

2022 Science EXPO

Lab members Sam, Adrienne, Cody, Carson, and Jennifer showcase the lab’s work!

Spring 2022 Lab

First scan for our EPIC study

“Labsgiving” 2021

Fall 2021 Lab

Congrats to Dr. Joshua Jackson who defended his dissertation!

Joshua Jackson successfully defended his dissertation entitled “Moral concept theory: Cultural evolution, social cognition, and the bridge from cooperation to morality.” Dr. Jackson will be joining Kellogg School of Management in July 2021 as a postdoctoral fellow.

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Congrats to Gaby alvarez

Gaby Alvarez successfully defended her Masters thesis, entitled “Previous exposure to racial discrimination and current affective context modulate Black individuals’ neural reactivity to White faces.” She is pictured here with committee members Dr. Keely Muscatell, Dr. Kristen Lindquist and Dr. Keith Payne.

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Congrats to Justin Wahlers

Senior Justin Wahlers successfully defended his Honors thesis, entitled “A Situational Analysis of Emotion Regulation: Exploring the Role of Emotion-by-Strategy Associations in Regulating Negative Affect.” He is pictured here with committee members Dr. Paschal Sheeran, Dr. Kristen Lindquist and Joseph Leshin. Justin will begin a PhD in Psychology at the University of Alabama in Fall 2021.

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Congrats to Jingyi Luo

Senior Jingyi Luo successfully defended her Honors thesis, entitled “Investigating the relationship between gender, interoception, and belief.” She is pictured here with committee members Mallory Feldman, Dr. Nicole Else-Quest, and Dr. Kristen Lindquist. Jingyi is looking for post-bacc research positions and intends to pursue research in affective science.

2020-2021 CASL

The closest we could get to a lab photo during the pandemic!

Congrats to Dr. Shablack

Dr. Holly Shablack started a Visiting Assistant Professorship at Oberlin College in Fall 2020.

congrats to dr. MacCormack

Dr. Jenn MacCormack started a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh in August 2020.

Congrats to dr. doyle

Dr. Cameron Doyle started a position at Facebook as a UX Researcher in June 2020.

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Lab happy hour

The CASL grad students had a virtual happy hour during the COVID-19 pandemic to celebrate the recent PhD recipients (complete with kid photo bombs).

Congrats to Dr. Holly Shablack!

Dr. Shablack successfully defended her dissertation entitled “Concept accessibility and the experience of stress.”

Congrats to Ava Liccione!

Ava defended her senior honors thesis entitled “The Role of Alexithymia in Interoceptive Contributions to Acute Stress.”

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Congrats to Dr. Jennifer MacCormack!

Dr. MacCormack successfully defended her dissertation entitled “Minding the body: The role of interoception in linking physiology and emotion during stress.”

Congrats to Dr. Cameron Doyle!

Dr. Doyle successfully defended her dissertation entitled “Unsupervised classification reveals degenerate neural representations for emotion.”

2019-2020 Lab

Congrats to the 2019 lab graduates!

Senior Natasha Vernooij will start a PhD in Cognitive Psychology at Michigan in the fall!

Congrats to the 2019 lab graduates!

Senior honors thesis student Ashima Varma will start a MS in Neuroscience at Georgetown in the fall!

Cameron Doyle receives 2019 SANS best poster award

The Social Affective Neuroscience Society recognized our work showing multiple (i.e., degenerate) functional connectivity patterns underlying the same emotion.

2018-2019 SR HONORS THESIS STUDENT ashima varma DEFENDS HER THESIS

Ashima, with graduate student mentor Holly Shablack and Kristen Lindquist, will start a MS in Neuroscience at Georgetown next fall!

CASL undergrad RAs Lauren Gaeta, Taylor Killian, and Kaylee miceli perform demos of the lab’s research with visitors at the 2019 UNC Science Expo

The annual UNC Science Expo shares on-going research with attendees from across the state and region

CASL Graduate students Jenn MacCormack and Holly Shablack perform demos and share the lab’s on-going work at the 2019 UNC SCience expo.

The annual UNC Science Expo shares on-going research with attendees from across the state and region

Congrats to Dr. Kent Lee who defended his dissertation!

Kent will start a postdoc in Ajay Satpute’s Affective and Brain Sciences Lab at Northeastern University in January, 2019.

2018-2019 Lab group

Congrats to the 2018 lab graduates!

Senior honors thesis student Adrienne Bonar will start a post-bacc position as a lab coordinator in the UNC CIRCLE Lab this summer.

Cameron Doyle demonstrates ambulatory physiology equipment at the 2018 UNC Science Expo

The annual UNC Science Expo shares on-going research with attendees from across the state and region

2017-2018 lab

CASL and MPM Holiday Party 2017

SPSP fellow visits the lab

The lab welcomed Society for Personality and Social Psychology Summer Program for Undergraduate Research scholar Dhariyya Singh as an intern in summer 2017. Dhariyya visited Chapel Hill from India and examined physiological correlates of emotion in aging populations. Dhairyya with mentors Kristen Lindquist and Jenn MacCormack.

Congrats to the 2017 lab graduates!

Senior honors thesis student Anika Khan will start a PhD in Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania in the fall!

congrats to the 2017 lab graduates!

Senior honors thesis student Jenna Perry will begin a post-bacc position as a lab coordinator in the Social Cultural Neuroscience Lab at the University of Miami in the fall!

congrats to the 2017 lab graduates!

Seniors Jacob Averill and Jaylyn Gatling will start MA degrees in Psychology and I/O Psychology in the fall!

Kent Lee wins 2017 SAS best talk award

Kent was recognized by the Society for Affective Science for our work showing that conceptualizations of negative affect shapes prejudiced responses towards outgroup members

senior honors thesis student jenna perry and graduate student Jennifer maccormack win 2017 SAS best poster award

Jenna and Jenn were recognized by the Society for Affective Science for our work examining the physiological and interoceptive influences on emotion and somatic sensations.