Lab Alum

FORMER LAB MEMBERS

Ellery Robinson

Ellery Robinson currently works at Nutter McClennen & Fish LLP. Previously, Ellery served as a judicial extern at the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and as a legal intern at Boston Medical Center. Ellery graduated from Boston University School of Law in 2026. During law school, she was a student attorney in the Criminal Law Clinic representing indigent clients in the Boston Municipal Court in a variety of misdemeanor and felony cases. She was also a staff editor of the American Journal of Law & Medicine and a member of the Women’s Law Association. Before law school, Ellery was an Education Pioneers Impact Fellow in the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Educational Technology, where she led the office’s accessibility work, and a special education teacher in Waltham Public Schools. Active in the community, Ellery is a member of the Friends Council of Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston and a former volunteer parent advocate with Massachusetts Advocates for Children.

Rachel Shinnick

Rachel Shinnick (she/her) is currently a fourth year doctoral candidate in Counseling Psychology at the University of Massachusetts Boston. She is an alum of the Boston University Wheelock Master’s in Counseling and Sport Psychology program (’22). Rachel’s research focuses on the mental health lived experiences of student-athletes from historically marginalized identity groups. She is actively involved in professional service through the Association for Applied Sport Psychology (AASP), and APA Division 47: Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology. During her time at BU, Rachel was a member of the project NEW-DAY (Network for Enhancing Wellness in Disaster-Affected Youth) team. She supported efforts of this SAMSHA grant funded project to evaluate implementation of evidence-based trainings in Child-Adult Relationship Enhancement (CARE), Psychological First Aid (PFA), and Skills for Psychological Recovery (SPR).

Katherine (Nyholm) Levine

Katherine is a former masters student in the lab. She completed a bachelors degree in History from Williams College. After working in several student support roles in the Cambridge Public Schools, returned to graduate school at BU, where she obtained a masters degree in Special Education, Moderate Disabilities. Since graduating from BU, Katherine has worked as a Special Educator at the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, primarily coteaching English classes. Currently, she is a Conant Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her interests include student literacy and reading, and social-emotional learning.

Kesha Perkins

Kesha is a CAS ‘21 alumna with a major in Psychology and minor in African-American Studies. Post graduation, Kesha worked for research labs at Brown University and Mass General Brigham before her current position as Enrichment Program Manager for neurodivergent youth at a therapeutic school.

Claire Brown

Claire worked with the lab from 2014 – 2016 and graduated in May 2016 with a BA in Classical Civilization and a minor in Education. Since graduating from BU, she has worked at Rutgers University (Newark and New Brunswick, NJ) and currently serves as the Director of Student Experiences, Public Health Practice, & Alumni Affairs at the Rutgers School of Public Health. Claire earned her MPH in Social and Behavioral Health Sciences from the Rutgers School of Public Health in May 2019.

Yara Tashkandi

Yara is a research and social impact professional based in Saudi Arabia. She graduated from BU with bachelor’s degrees in Psychology and Health Science, with a minor in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and later earned an MPH in Sociomedical Sciences from Columbia University. She currently works as a Research Manager at S-Cube Consulting, where she leads research, evaluation, and social impact projects across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. Her work focuses on mixed-methods research, program evaluation, social return on investment, and translating evidence into practical strategies that support social change.

Rebecca Levine

Becca graduated with her PhD in Education from UC San Diego in 2026. She is now working as a postdoc with the Education Collaboratory at UMass Amherst, helping schools and districts support student social and emotional learning and contributing to meta-analysis research.

Madison Kitchen

Madison graduated from BU in 2024 with a dual masters degree in special education and social work. She is now a PhD student at the NYU Silver School of Social Work, where her work focuses on suicide prevention and the function of help-seeking behaviors during suicidal crises.

Clara Logan

Clara Logan (EdM, LMHC) has been working in community mental health since graduating from BU in 2018. Currently, Clara is the Community Service Agency (CSA) Program Director at Eliot Community Human Services. In this role, Clara supports a team of direct care professionals working with families navigating complex mental health needs across 24 cities and towns in Massachusetts.

Amanda Dimeo

Amanda is now a Family Medicine Physician Assistant working at CHA, providing primary care to patients of all ages, including newborns and children.