Dr. Pauline M. Maki is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Maki’s research over the last 12 years has focused on women’s mental and cognitive health. She has a longstanding interest in the effects of sex hormones and phytoestrogens on cognition, brain function, and psychological wellbeing in young, midlife and elderly women. Her brain imaging research led to novel insights into the neural targets of hormone therapy in postmenopausal women.

Dr. Maki received her Ph.D. in experimental psychology from the University of Minnesota in 1994. She received post-graduate training at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in the dementias of aging and at the National Institute on Aging in neuroimaging. In 1999, she joined the Intramural Research Program of the National Institute on Aging, where she became a co-developer and Co-Principal Investigator in the Women’s Health Initiative Study of Cognitive Aging (WHISCA) and Cognition in the Study of Tamoxifen and Raloxifene (Co-STAR).

In 2002, she joined the faculty at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she received funding from the National Institutes of Health to conduct randomized clinical trials comparing hormone therapy to alternative botanical therapies. Dr. Maki is a member of the North American Menopause Society (NAMS) Board of Trustees, the Chair Elect of the NAMS Research Affairs Committee, and the Director the NAMS Mentorship Program. She has numerous publications on hormones and cognitive function, won a number of NIH awards for her research and service, serves on executive committees for several women’s health advisory boards, and is a frequent international and national speaker on women’s cognitive health.

Dr. Carmin is a nationally recognized expert in the research and treatment of anxiety disorders and in cognitive behavior therapy. She is actively involved in training psychology post-doctoral fellows, interns, and externs and psychiatry residents in both CBT and anxiety treatment and is responsible for having developed these areas at UIC. She is a Founding Fellow of the Academy of Cognitive Therapy and has also been named a Beck Scholar, acknowledging her leadership in the field. Dr. Carmin is a member of an international working group studying cognitions in OCD and is one of the few clinical scientists who have published in the area of OCD in the elderly. She has also received NIMH grant funding to examine the relationship between anxiety and coronary heart disease. Her interests focus on translational research and psychophysiology of anxiety disorders. She has published widely and has presented at national and international meetings.

Dr. Porges conducts research focusing on the translation of neurobehavioral principles into methods of assessment and treatment of clinical disorders. He is Professor of Psychiatry and Biomedical Engineering. He is the former President of the Federation of Behavioral, Psychological and Cognitive Sciences and the Society for Psychophysiological Research. He is a neuroscientist with particular interests in understanding the neurobiology of social behavior. His research focuses how the autonomic nervous system relates to adaptive behavior, state regulation, and social engagement strategies. His research crosses disciplines and he has published in such diverse disciplines as anesthesiology, critical care medicine, ergonomics, exercise physiology, gerontology, neurology, obstetrics, pediatrics, psychiatry, psychology, space medicine, and substance abuse. In 1994 he proposed the Polyvagal Theory, a theory that links the evolution of the vertebrate autonomic nervous system to the emergence of social behavior. The theory provides insights into the mechanisms mediating symptoms observed in several behavioral, psychiatric, and physical disorders. His research is leading to new protocols to assess clinical disorders and innovative interventions designed to stabilize behavioral and psychological states and to stimulate spontaneous social behavior. He was the recipeint of NIMH Research Scientist Development Award and his research has been continuously funded by NIH for more than 35 years.

Dr. Carter is currently Professor of Psychiatry and Co-Director of The Brain Body Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She formally held the rank of Distinguished University Professor in Biology at the University of Maryland, and before that was Professor of Psychology, Ecology, Ethology and Evolution at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She has authored or coauthored over 250 research articles and chapters and 5 volumes including "Attachment and Bonding: A New Synthesis" (MIT Press), "The Integrative Neurobiology of Affiliation" (New York Academy of Sciences, MIT Press), "Is There a Neurobiology of Love", a special issue of the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology (Elsevier), and 2 other volumes. Dr. Carter has a career-long history of research funding from the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health and was the recipient of a Research Career Scientist Award from the National Institute of Health. She also is has served as President of the International Behavioral Neuroscience Society.

Dr. Carter studies the neurobiology of monogamy, social bonds and parental behavior. Her research created the basic paradigms used for the analysis of the biological basis of monogamy, and established the prairie vole as the major model for examining the biology of adult social bonds. She and her colleagues have identified the role of brain peptides, including oxytocin, vasopressin and CRF in pair bond formation. She has also discovered that oxytocin and vasopressin can program the developing nervous system with life-long consequences for brain and behavior.

Leah Rubin earned a masters in clinical psychology from Loyola College in Maryland and then earned a second masters and a PhD in cognitive psychology from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She has been supported by NIH during her academic career, and currently is part of multiple studies investigating hormonal factors that influence cognition in a number of populations including schizophrenia and HIV. Dr. Rubin's primary focus has been the effects of sex hormones, including estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, and oxytocin on cognition in schizophrenia. In addition, she has served as a study biostatistician on a number of projects in the Departments of Psychiatry and Psychology at UIC.

E-mail: lrubin@psych.uic.edu

Jill became a member of the Maki Lab in the summer of 2008. She is the RISE research coordinator and has been working on the development and initiation of this clinical trial. She also is involved in multiple projects throughout the lab by working with the hot flash and heart rate variability data.

E-mail: jbreit@psych.uic.edu

Antonia joined the Maki Lab in the spring of 2008. She is the coordinator for a study investigating a novel treatment for hot flashes and menopausal symptoms and she is also the neurocognitive task administrator for a study investigating the effects of oral contraceptive use on memory and other mental abilities. In addition, she trains personnel on how to administer neurocognitive tasks as part of a nationwide HIV study.

E-mail: asavarese@psych.uic.edu

Lauren’s general research interest focuses on how hormones and changes in physiology interact with the brain to produce changes in cognition. She has two specific areas of focus.  The first is how natural fluctuations and changes in endogenous hormones and neuropeptides can influence things like memory, attention and verbal abilities. Her second research focus is on hot flashes during menopause and other health states associated with low estrogen levels. She is interested in how these discreet themoregulatory episodes change physiology, and thus change brain functioning.

E-mail: ldrogos@psych.uic.edu

Erin joined the lab in the fall of 2006. Her focus in the lab is examining the influence of sex steroid hormones and genetics on memory and executive function in healthy women and women with HIV using behavioral and neuroimaging methods. She is currently investigating the effect of a gene related to dopamine metabolism on working memory function and prefrontal cortex function in HIV+ and at-risk HIV- women. Some of her other interests also include identifying estrogen-related genetic predictors of cognition and mood as well as frontal executive processes that contribute to memory encoding and retrieval. Lastly, she is currently examining the effect of psychosocial stress on convergent vs. divergent thinking in healthy women and how oral contraceptive use and menstrual cycle phase moderate this effect.

E-mail: esundermann@psych.uic.edu

Vanessa had been a member of the lab since January 2009. She is investigating the effects of drug abuse on cognition in women with HIV, with imaging and behavioral studies.  She is also involved in projects investigating hot flashes in women with HIV and the circadian rhythm of hot flashes.

E-mail: vmeyer@psych.uic.edu

Joined the lab in 2006

Joined the lab in 2009