Ashley Sanders

Assistant Professor, Behavioral and Brain Sciences Program

Dr. Sanders will be accepting applications for a graduate student for Fall 2026.

Dr. Sanders is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Georgia. She is a developmental cognitive neuroscientist who received her PhD in Applied Biopsychology from the University of New Orleans in 2019. She then began her postdoctoral training at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis working on the Lifespan Human Connectome Project in Development (HCP-D). Shortly after, Dr. Sanders joined the NIMH-funded T32 Developmental Neuroscience & Child Psychopathology postdoctoral training program in the Department of Psychiatry at Washington University under the direction of Drs. Deanna Barch and Joan Luby. She joined UGA in Fall 2024. 

Dr. Sanders' research aim is to elucidate the neural mechanisms by which socioeconomic disadvantage impacts a child's biobehavioral trajectory and risk for psychiatric illness, with the ultimate goal of informing public health policies targeting childhood adversity. To this end, she utilizes a range of neuroimaging modalities (e.g., resting-state functional connectivity, diffusion tensor imaging) alongside inflammatory biomarkers (e.g., cytokines) to understand the role of a child's environment in their neurodevelopment. She also has a keen interest in brain regions that are implicated in stress and cognition but are otherwise unexplored in relation to social and environmental disadvantage (e.g., the cerebellum).

Education:

Postdoc, Washington University in St. Louis (2020-2024)

PhD, University of New Orleans (2014-2019)

Research Interests:

Socioeconomic inequity is among the most pervasive types of childhood stress and is associated with a broad range of psychiatric disorders (e.g., major depression, anxiety, conduct disorder) and subclinical anomalies (e.g., altered reward processing, emotion dysregulation, school problems). There is a growing body of literature suggesting that socioeconomic disadvantage during childhood impacts brain development at structural and functional levels. Despite these challenges, disadvantaged children often develop adaptive skills and abilities to cope with their harsh environments. Adaptations to such settings may impact how the child processes information about their environment. However, the mechanisms through which childhood disadvantage affects neurodevelopment are not well understood. Dr. Sanders' program of research incorporates neuroimaging and immune metrics to investigate how disadvantage-related neuroinflammation impacts a child's developmental trajectory.  

Selected Publications:

Sanders, A.F.P., B., Seider, N. A., Triplett, R. L., Lean, R. E., Neil, J. J., Miller, J.P., Tillman, R., Smyser, T.A., Barch, D.M, Luby, J.L, Chen, E., Miller, G. E. (2024). Prenatal exposure to maternal disadvantage-related inflammatory biomarkers: associations with neonatal white matter microstructure. Translational Psychiatry, 14(1), 72.

Sanders, A.F.P., Harms, M.P., Kandala, S., Marek, S., Somerville, L.H., Bookheimer, S.Y., Dapretto, M., Thomas, K.M., Van Essen, D.C., Yacoub, E., & Barch, D.M. (2023). Age-related differences in resting-state functional connectivity from childhood to adolescence. Cerebral Cortex, 33(11), 6928-6942.

Sanders, A.F.P., Baum, G.L., Harms, M.P., Kandala, S., Bookheimer, S.Y., Dapretto, M., Somerville, L.H., Thomas, K.M., Van Essen, D.C., Yacoub, E., & Barch, D.M. (2022). Developmental trajectories of cortical thickness by functional brain network: The roles of pubertal timing and socioeconomic status. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 57, 101145.

Other Affiliations:
SEND Lab Website

Lia Follet

Graduate Student, Clinical Program
Education:

Master of Professional Studies in Clinical Psychological Science from the University of Maryland at College Park
Degree Conferred: December 2020
 

Bachelor of Science in Psychology; Minor in Women’s and Gender Studies from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Degree Conferred: May 2019

Research Interests:

My research focuses on understanding how adolescents and emerging adults experience suicidal crises and how these different experiences relate to crisis treatment engagement. My work pulls heavily from affective and cognitive science.

Of note:

I am a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellow through the Department of Defense and a doctoral fellow through the University of Georgia Graduate School.

Daylin Delgado

Graduate Student, Clinical Program

Daylin Delgado is a first-generation Cuban-American woman from Miami Gardens, Florida. She double-majored in Psychology and Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought at Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts. While at Amherst, Daylin discovered her love for research, particularly in adolescent mental health, while working with Dr. Julia McQuade in the Peer Relationships Lab. 

After graduation in May 2022, Daylin worked for two years as a clinical research assistant on the Autistic Adults and other Stakeholders Engage Together - Suicide Prevention (AASET-SP) project at the UNC TEACCH Autism Program in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Her primary research project focused on adapted interventions for addressing suicidality in autistic youth and young adults. In this role, Daylin gained invaluable experience in community-partnered research and clinical trials, and what it means to involve the communities we wish to help in the research process from start to finish. 

In the Clinical Psychology Ph.D. program at the University of Georgia, Daylin hopes to continue to improve and expand her research skills, and address the issues of mental health disparities in adolescents from underrepresented and underserved communities. 

Education:

B.A., Psychology, Amherst College, Amherst, MA

Selected Publications:

LaPoint, S. C., Simmons, G. L., Heinly, J. M., Delgado, D., Shepherd, W. S., Brookman-Frazee, L. I., Storch, E. A., Maddox, B. B. (2024). “Education would be step number one”: Community mental health clinicians’ training and support needs to treat anxiety in autistic youth. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rasd.2024.102450 
 

McQuade, J. D., Breaux, R., Cash, A. R., Horton, N. J., Azu, M. A., & Delgado, D. (2023). Differential associations and concordance across measures of parent emotion socialization: The role of parent and adolescent emotion dysregulation. Social Development, 32, 1374–1393. https://doi.org/10.1111/sode.12696 

Carsynn Miller

Graduate Student, Industrial-Organizational Program
Education:

Graduated with a B.S. in Psychology from The University of Georgia in 2023.

Research Interests:

D.E.I., leadershipship, employee well-being, and the changing nature of work.

Of note:

Carsynn works in the Leadership and Performance Dynamics Lab (advised by Dr. Brian Hoffman) as well as the Relationships and Work Lab (advised by Dr. Melissa Roberston)

Other Affiliations:
LinkedIn
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