FTRG: Who We Are

Dr. Heyman is a Professor at New York University, where he co-directs the Family Translational Research Group. He earned a B.S. from Duke University and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Oregon. He’s a licensed psychologist.

Dr. Heyman has received over 70 grants/contracts from major U.S. funding agencies on a variety of topics, from family maltreatment to couples communication to dental fear to social determinants of health. Dr. Heyman has published over 200 scientific articles/chapters on these topics.

At the core of Dr. Heyman’s research is translating basic knowledge into prevention and treatment and improving the adoption of evidence-based practices.

Dr. Slep's research focuses on understanding the interconnected concepts of anger, conflict, aggression, and abuse in families with the ultimate goals of (a) determining what distinguishes adaptive from destructive processes and (b) developing effective prevention approaches. She is also committed to understanding how to make prevention efforts that are effective more accessible and more widely implemented. Her work is strongly grounded in social learning theory and implementation science. Ultimately, she is interested in identifying and exploiting the naturally occurring mechanisms of change and outcomes to serve as the basis for more powerful interventions. Much of her work tests hypotheses that build toward an integrated theory of the etiology and maintenance of child and partner abuse. She maintains a strong interest in addressing methodological and measurement gaps. Finally, she is committed to translating the findings from her basic studies into effective prevention, extending this work into real world settings, and understanding what helps effective practices sustain over time. Since obtaining her Ph.D in 1995, Dr. Slep has served as the PI or co-PI on over 70 federally-funded studies. She has published nearly 200 articles and chapters and serves on two federal advisory committees.

Dr. Eckardt is the Director of Military Research and Community-Based Prevention Science and an Associate Research Scientist in the Family Translational Research Group. She also has a faculty appointment and teaches at the College of Dentistry.

Dr. Eckardt began in the lab as a postdoctoral research associate in 2009 and has served as a scientist on over a dozen military projects, both at the DoD-level and service-specific level. Dr. Eckardt has published and presented on the role of couple and family dynamics in health-related outcomes. In addition, she has been funded as a principal investigator through internal and external seed grants.

Dr. Eckardt is a licensed psychologist who holds specialty board certification in Couple and Family Psychology from the American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP), and is credentialed by the National Register of Health Service Psychologists. Dr. Eckardt is a fellow at The New York Academy of Medicine.

Dr. Mitnick is the Director of Family Clinical and Prevention Research at the Family Translational Research Group, and a Clinical Associate Professor.

Dr. Mitnick received a PhD in 2010 in Clinical Psychology from Stony Brook University, and completed her predoctoral clinical internship at the Northport Veterans Affairs Medical Center. During her doctoral training, Dr. Mitnick focused on couples' relationships, especially across the transition to parenthood.

Dr. Mitnick serves as the Director of Family Clinical and Prevention Research. She is a course director for Communication in Healthcare: Working with Diverse Populations, and contributes to dental education on communicating with patients effectively.

Dr. Mitnick has published on relationship satisfaction, transition to parenthood, and treating intimate partner violence.

Dr. Rhoades is a research scientist with the Family Translational Research Group at New York University. Her training and background are in social and health psychology and prevention science. Dr. Rhoades’ research focuses on (1) the etiology of interpersonal aggression and violence and associated behaviors; (2) translating basic knowledge about family and biobehavioral processes, into preventive interventions to benefit children and families; (3) evaluation of prevention and intervention programs, policies, and practices; (4) understanding the processes by which preventive interventions are disseminated, implemented, brought to scale, and sustained over time. Dr. Rhoades received her PhD in Social and Health Psychology from Stony Brook University

Ms. Collins has an MSW from UA Little Rock. In 2022 she retired from federal service with Air Force Family Advocacy Program (FAP). Ms. Collins managed the Little Rock AFB FAP from 1988-98 when she became AF FAP Clinical Director. For 23 years she served as domestic abuse and child maltreatment consultant to the AF Surgeon General, consultant and trainer for all AF family violence social workers, and managed numerous FAP-related research projects. She had a key role in developing DOD and AF family maltreatment response policy. Currently she supports DOD family violence research projects at NYU.

Dr. Daly is a child psychologist with a research and clinical specialization in maltreatment trauma. Specifically, her research program has focused on the neural and socioemotional impacts of trauma exposure across the lifespan, and risk and resilience factors implicated in the intergenerational transmission of family violence. Through her treatment experiences, Dr. Daly has become passionate about child advocacy and institutional reform. She is particularly interested in research initiatives geared toward the identification of systemic problems and modification of existing operating procedures within systems responsible for child welfare (e.g., CPS, family courts, schools). She is incredibly excited to be contributing to FTRG’s work on this within the military, and to be working in implementation science generally. Dr. Daly received her PhD in Child Clinical Psychology from the Pennsylvania State University.

Dr. Drew is a qualitative and mixed methods researcher who is interested in interpersonal relationships’ (e.g., spouses, parent-child, mentor-mentee) influences on children and families. Her research focuses on how evidence-based prevention programs can bolster these relationships and the factors that influence how programs are implemented and sustained. Dr. Drew completed her PhD in Sociology and Social Work at Boston University. Her doctoral work focused on relational processes and program support for youth mentoring relationships. Her postdoctoral fellowship, also at Boston University, focused on supports for military children and families.

Dr. Jasara Hogan is a clinical psychologist who is passionate about the dissemination and implementation of evidence-based treatments. She completed her doctoral training at the University of Utah where she studied the etiology and treatment of romantic relationship distress with an emphasis on the efficacy of Integrative Behavioral Couple Therapy (IBCT). During internship at the Charleston Consortium, Dr. Hogan transitioned her research to understanding the role of romantic relationship functioning in the etiology, course, and treatment of individual Alcohol Use Disorder and binge drinking behavior. Prior to joining FTRG, Dr. Hogan was a Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women’s Health (BIRCWH) scholar and Research Assistant professor at the Medical University of South Carolina in the Addiction Sciences Division.

Dr. Lapshina is an Assistant Research Scientist in the Family Translational Research Group, New York University. She holds a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada. Her research interests focus on (1) associations among sociodemographic factors, poly-victimization, physical and mental health problems in children and adults in a variety of contexts (2) research methodology and data analysis.

Dr. Jennifer Piscitello is a child clinical psychologist whose research focuses on (1) examining the transactional relationship between child and caregiver psychological adjustment; (2) developing and evaluating assessment tools for understanding youth and parent functioning; and (3) optimizing family-based interventions (e.g., behavioral parent training). She has explored these ideas within a multitude of contexts and populations (e.g., natural disasters, childhood disruptive behavior problems, underserved and traditionally marginalized communities). Dr. Piscitello completed her undergraduate training in Psychology and Political Science at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook where she worked with the FTRG as an undergraduate Research Assistant. She received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Louisiana State University.

Dr. Anna Segura is a clinical psychologist with a background in child victimization. Her research interests include (1) exploring the impact of multiple traumas (including poly-victimization and other adverse experiences) on child and adolescent health, resilience, or posttraumatic growth; (2) understanding how interventions across the social-ecological model can help protect against victimization; (3) the role of cross-cultural contexts for research on more effective prevention and intervention practices. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Barcelona. Her dissertation highlighted the effects of poly-victimization on mental health problems and risk and protective factors among adolescents in residential care in Catalonia. She advocates for children and minority languages rights; and is excited to join the FTRG fantastic team!

I hold a double Master's degree in Psychology, I majored in Clinical Psychology at S.N.D.T. University in Mumbai and Social Psychology at the University of Northern Iowa. Over the years, I have held various research positions at public and private universities/hospitals and am very excited to be a part of the FTRG team.

I received a BA in Psychology from Niagara University and an MA in Forensic Psychology from John Jay College of Criminal Justice. I am currently pursuing an LMHC at the NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. Over the years I have held various research lab and clinical positions and discovered that my research interests lay in intergenerational trauma and how it can affect certain individuals within families. I am very excited to be with this lab and support the team in what they do!

I recently re-joined FTRG after being on the team as a JRS from 2018-2021. I aid in the data management process for a wide range of FTRG projects. I earned my BS in Psychology with a minor in Childhood Studies from Christopher Newport University in 2016, and was previously a research assistant at the Johns Hopkins Laboratory for Child Development and at Penn State for a project exploring the development of self-regulation dynamics . I'm currently pursuing a PhD in Cognitive Psychology at Rutgers University under Dr. Jenny Wang, where I study babies' understanding of number and children's gender biases in mathematical contexts. I'm excited to continue my work at FTRG and support the team's research goals!

I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from New York University in 2012, and was given the opportunity to join the lab full-time as a Junior Research Scientist. As many before me, I was a former FTRG extern, so this was quite an honor. In 2016, I received my Master of Social Work from NYU and continue to work part-time as a Clinical Research Assistant, helping with many aspects of the research process including IRB submission and the publication of study results.

My relationship with FTRG extends back to 2012 when I joined the team as a Rapid Marital Interaction Coding System (RMICS) extern, shortly after graduating from Hunter College with a BA in Psychology. After several exciting months of training, I had the pleasure of taking over the RMICS coding department as a Jr Research Scientist. Since then, I have received my Master of Social Work from the NYU Silver School of Social Work, spent time working in suicide prevention and early intervention, and have continued to work on several projects with FTRG. I am delighted to return to the lab as a full-time member to support the team in all the many areas of exciting work we do!

I recently graduated NYU with a B.A. in psychology and minors in sociology and child and adolescent mental health studies. My goal is to pursue a PhD in clinical psychology with a focus on child and adolescent maltreatment. I started at FTRG as an extern working on the IES Second Step study. After a year, I joined the team as a junior research scientist. I’m super excited to work with all the amazing people here! 

I received my BA in psychology and neuroscience from Skidmore College, and graduated from NYU with an MA in psychology in 2021. While there I studied motivation and its potential relationship to extreme mindsets. I joined the FTRG staff the summer after as a data manager, and am excited to be working with the amazing people in this lab!

I received a BA in psychology from Hunter College and am currently enrolled in the NYU Masters program for Mental Health and Wellness Counseling. I worked as an extern at FTRG for two semesters before joining the team as a Junior Research Scientist in September 2022. I am mainly involved in the Dental Fear Study, but also help out with other studies and general lab coordination. In my free time, I am a musician and an avid reader.

I am a graduate of Nyack College with a BA in Psychology and am currently pursuing an MSW at the NYU Silver School of Social Work. I began my externship with FTRG as a recruiter for the Teen Dating Study and then as a Demand-Withdraw head observational coder. Later, I was extremely fortunate to officially join the FTRG staff as a Junior Research Scientist. I started as an assessment runner on the Science of Behavior Change study. Since then, I have been involved as a project coordinator in a variety of studies in the lab, including Caseload Management, ADAPT Level 1 and Aftercare Group Reboot, Department of Defense Sexual Assault Prevention, DTA IV Sexual Harassment, IES Second Step, and FAP Animal Cruelty Reporting. Outside of the lab, I enjoy going to pop culture conventions and Renaissance faires, and reading and watching anything from the science fiction and fantasy genre.

I received my MSW from NYU Silver School of Social work, and while at NYU Silver, took part in various research projects and training. Some of these experiences include being a Research Trainee at the NYU Langone SARET Program and a LEND Trainee at the Westchester Institute for Human Development. After graduating my MSW, I obtained my LMSW, pursued a clinical social work position in a foster care agency, and obtained valuable clinical skills and knowledge about the US foster care system. I am passionate about social science research specifically looking into the efficacy of evidence based and informed treatments. I am also interested in topics including child maltreatment, foster care, interpersonal relationships and couple and family psychology.