Updates

BASE Lab Updates!

June 2024: Raina Kim, M.A., has been accepted into PCOM’s clinical PsyD program! Congrats Raina!

June 2024: Members of the BASE Lab traveled to Cyprus for the 10th biennial meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Psychopathy!

Sarah Lynch (PhD student) received the Cheryl-Wynn-Hare Award for her presentation “Exploring Patterns of Affiliation Underlying Callous-Unemotional Traits in Early Childhood via a Novel Computerized Assessment”!

Nicole Huth (PhD student) presented her findings examining the neurophysiological and environmental mechanisms underlying CU trait development!

April 2024: Congratulations to the numerous members of the BASE lab who have been accepted into graduate programs and faculty positions! Our awesome BASE team members are on to accomplish great things!

Nila Shakiba (postdoc): accepted a tenure-track assistant professor position at Auburn University!
Polina Perelstein (staff): accepted into the University of Alabama’s clinical psychology PhD program
Kendall Andrews (staff): accepted into law school at New York University (NYU)
Amanda Swartz (master’s student): accepted a position as a Research Coordinator at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia                                                      Tori Keefauver (undergraduate RA):  accepted into University of Pittsburgh’s PhD in Neuroscience program, Department of Biological Psychiatry
Renee Torio (undergraduate RA):  accepted into the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill to pursue an M.S. in Clinical Mental Health Counseling
Maya Applbaum (undergraduate RA): accepted into Boston University’s Masters in Social Work (MSW) program

March 2024: Dr. Sarah Vogel was interviewed about her gut microbiome research for a podcast about child development! Click here to listen to it!

March 2024: Members of the BASE lab traveled to the Eastern Psychological Association (EPA) conference in Philadelphia to present their research!

Kathy Sem (PhD student) gave a talk about her research on parent-child language matching (LSM) and Behavioral Inhibition (BI) Post-Intervention!

Nicole Huth (PhD student) presented her poster, “Links Between Childhood Effortful Control and Externalizing Psychopathology: A Bi-factor Modeling Approach”

Polina Perelstein (Research Coordinator) presented her poster, “Parenting Practices and Child Emotion Regulation Over Three months of the Pandemic: The Moderating Role of Cultural Tightness”

Amanda Swartz (MA student) presented her poster, “Secure Attachment and Child Self-Regulation: Unraveling Dynamics in Conflict Discussions.”

While in Philadelphia, our team had dinner with our collaborators at the University of Pennsylvania’s EDEN Lab! What a busy weekend!

January 2024: Congratulations to Marcos Coli for completing his master’s degree! Huge shoutout also to our former intern Eden Park for getting accepted into her dream college, Cornell.

August 2023: RISE Symposium ’23. We are so proud to see off our high school summer interns, Eden Park and Sophia Lam! Eden presented a poster about her work on processing gaze data from our new mobile eye-tracking glasses, and Sophia presented her findings about the interaction between parenting practices, culture, and child anxiety from our international COVID study, COPES (Coronavirus Outbreak Parenting and Emotions Study).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

March 2023: Dr. Nick Wagner, Dr. Nila Shakiba, and graduate student Kathy Sem gave talks on their research at the Society for Research in Child Development! 

March 2023: Graduate student Kathy Sem presented her research on parent-child language style matching (LSM) and children’s social competence at the Eastern Psychological Association (EPA) conference in Boston!

 

November 2022: Members of the BASE Lab traveled to San Diego to present at the 55th annual International Society for Developmental Psychobiology (ISDP) Conference! Dr. Nick Wagner, Dr. Nila Shakiba, Kathy Sem, Sarah Lynch, Tori Keefauver, and Kendall Andrews.

  

October 2022: BASE Lab RA Rutva Bhatt presented her research on the associations between skin conductance response and CU traits during a novel variation of the Trier Social Stress Test at the Boston University Undergraduate Research Symposium. Nice work, Rutva!

 

March 2022: We are excited to announce that we have received notice of award for a new collaborative NIMH R21 with Dr. Rebecca Waller and Dr. AJ Rosellini to validate a coding scheme to assess RDoC social constructs and to use machine learning to identify risk for CU traits.

January 2022: Congratulations to undergraduate RAs Tori Keefauver and Kendall Andrews for receiving UROP funding for the Spring 2022 semester! Tori’s project will explore relations between parents’ use of language and children’s physiological regulation during emotional conversations. Kendall will continue their work examining dynamic changes in children’s physiological regulation while they watch emotional videos. RA Erin Duffy will continue her work examining the role of parental social support in buffering families from pandemic-related stress.

January 2022: Dr. Wagner received notice of award for the lab’s first NIH-funded R01! This collaborative longitudinal study with Dr. Rebecca Waller’s lab at the University of Pennsylvania will investigate early risk pathways to the development of callous-unemotional traits.

December 2021: Congratulations to undergraduate research assistant Ankur Bamezai on graduating! We know you’ll make an excellent teacher and wish you all the best!

December 2021: Dr. Wagner spoke to BU’s Arts & Sciences Magazine about the importance of parents discussing emotions with their children.

October 2021: BASE Lab RA Erin Duffy presented her work on the impacts of parental social support on child outcomes during the pandemic at the Boston University Undergraduate Research Symposium. Great work, Erin!

September 2021: Congratulations to undergraduate RA Kendall Andrews for receiving UROP funding for the fall semester! Their project will examine dynamic changes in children’s physiological regulation while they watch emotional videos.

August 2021: Dr. Wagner spoke to Bostonia about the COPES study and the impact of COVID-19 on children and families.

June 2021: Congratulations to undergraduate RA Erin Duffy for receiving the UROP Global Challenge Research Award! This award will provide one year of funding for her research project entitled ‘How does the type and amount of parental social support buffer against stress from COVID to promote parent and child mental health?’ 

May 2021: Congratulations to undergraduate research assistants Natasha Soesanto, Maya Delity, and Liz Hinds, MA student Yue Sun, and MPH student Cameron Cooper, on graduating! We know will you go on to do great things!

May 2021: Members of the BASE Lab attended the Society for the Scientific Study of Psychopathy 2021 Early Career Event:

• First-year graduate student Deaven Winebrake presented a Blitz Talk: Children’s effortful control moderates the predictive relations between observed sensitive caregiving in early childhood and later callous-unemotional traits
• Second-year graduate student Sarah Lynch presented a poster: Examining links between parasympathetic nervous system functioning and callous-unemotional traits: a meta-analytic review and empirical investigation
• Research coordinator Tru Powell presented a poster: Emotion recognition deficits associated with callous-unemotional traits in children across static and dynamic stimuli
• Undergraduate research assistant Natasha Soesanto presented a poster: Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia Augmentation During Social Stress Predicts Elevated Callous-Unemotional Traits in Males

April 2021: Dr. Wagner received notice that the BASE Lab was awarded an R03 from the National Institutes of Health alongside collaborators at the University of Maryland to examine neurophysiological predictors of treatment response to a multi-component intervention for socially inhibited preschoolers.

April 2021: Members of the BASE Lab attended the Society for Research in Child Development 2021 Biennial Meeting:

• Dr. Wagner presented his talk, entitled “The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on families and children’s externalizing psychopathology, ” at the paper symposium The Pandemic and the Mental Health of Parents and Children Across Pregnancy, Infancy, and Childhood 
• Second-year graduate student Sarah Lynch presented a flash talk entitled “Examining Links Between Infant Parasympathetic Regulation During the Still-Face Paradigm and Later Callous-Unemotional Traits”
• First-year graduate student Deaven Winebrake presented a poster entitled “Examining Sex Differences in the Longitudinal Relations Between Callous-Unemotional Traits and Social Problems Across Childhood.” Her poster was recognized as one which best reflects interdisciplinary research. Congrats, Deaven!

• Research coordinator Tru Powell presented a poster entitled “Stimulus characteristics influence emotion recognition performance”

April 5th, 2021: The BASE Lab welcomes two brand new junior scientists with the birth of Dr. Wagner’s twins, Maddox and Reuben!

March 2021: BASE Lab RA Erin Duffy was awarded a UROP scholarship for the Summer 2021 semester. Her project will look at parental social support as a buffer against the impact of COVID-related stress on parent and child mental health. Congrats, Erin!

January 2021: BASE Lab RA Liz Hinds was awarded a UROP scholarship for the Spring 2021 semester. Her project will look at emotion language and self-regulation in parents and children. Congrats, Liz!

December 2020: Dr. Wagner spoke to BU Experts about an exciting new project in the BASE Lab, an NIMH-funded study examining the effects of the gut microbiome on mental health from birth to age 5 years.

September 2020: Dr. Wagner’s advice about parenting in a pandemic was featured in Medium, Futurity, Fox 4 News, and BU’s the Brink.

April 2020: Research by Dr. Wagner was featured in BU’s the Brink and Futurity.

January 2020: Research by Dr. Wagner and Dr. Waller, BASE Lab collaborator from the University of Pennsylvania, was featured on EurekAlert and Penn Today.

November 2019: BASE Lab RAs Maya Delity and Natasha Soesanto were awarded full Undergraduate Research Opportunity research scholarships for Spring 2020. Congratulations!

October 2019: Congratulations to Natasha Soesanto on presenting her poster at the 22nd Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium that featured the research she did at BASE Lab this summer!

             

September 2019: Congratulations to Natasha Soesanto for being accepted into the Brigham and Women Hospital’s Medical Career Exploration Volunteer Program!

Summer 2019: Congratulations to BASE Lab research assistant Natasha Soesanto for being awarded a full UROP research scholarship for the summer!

April 2019: Dr. Wagner was featured in the New Faculty Spotlight section of the BU Arts & Sciences newsletter, CAS News. Read the newsletter here.

April 2019: Check out BASE Lab’s blog post, Callous-Unemotional Traits: Differentiating Early Risk for Aggressive Behaviors, for the International Society for Research on Aggression here.

April 2019: Dr. Wagner was featured in the UNC College of Arts and Sciences article, Meet Nick Wagner, Class of 2016. Read the article here.

March 2019: Dr. Wagner was interviewed for the Reuters Health article, Women who vape around pregnancy may wrongly think it safe. Read more here.

2018: Dr. Wagner was selected as a 2018 Rising Star by the Association for Psychological Science. The APS Rising Star designation is presented to outstanding early career psychological scientists whose research has advanced the field. More information can be found here.

July 2018: Dr. Wagner was selected by the International Society for Research in Aggression to participate in the Young Investigator Program. Learn more about the award here and read the lab’s ISRA blog post here.