Lab Director, Dr. Allecia Reid
Allecia Reid is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Prior to UMass, she was the William and Margaret Montgoris Assistant Professor of Psychology at Colby College. Broadly, her research aims to understand the factors that contribute to engagement in health risk behaviors and to improve the design of health promotion interventions. She is especially interested in the roles of peers, social norms, and stigmatizing environments in health. Much of this work examines young adult alcohol use. Work in the lab is currently supported by the National Institute for Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and the National Science Foundation.
Lab Personnel
Madison Bracken, Graduate Student
Madison is a third year PhD student in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her research interests include health behavior change, mHealth and technology supported interventions and online social support. Madison received her BA in psychology from the University of Connecticut in 2013 and Master’s in Health Psychology from Central Connecticut State University in 2017. Prior to coming to UMass, Madison worked as a research coordinator at the Center for mHealth and Social Media at the University of Connecticut.
Alexander Kellogg, Graduate Student
Alex is a fourth year PhD student in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. His research interests concern the effects of stigma, particularly structural stigma, on health behavior and outcomes. He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 2020 with BAs in psychology and sociology. Before joining the University of Massachusetts Amherst, he worked as a research assistant in the Pennebaker Language Lab and the Population Research Center.
Sheemrun Ranjan (Shim-rin Rungin), Lab Manager
Sheemrun is a post grad in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. Her research interests pertain to understanding the social, health, and cultural effects of Western culture on South Asians and other ethnic groups. She graduated from the University of California, Merced in 2021 with a BA in Psychological Sciences. Before joining the SPaH Lab, she worked as a research assistant in the Merced Experimental Social and Health (MESH) Lab, Wiebe Lab, and Backer Lab. Her academic goals are to apply to grad programs in Fall 2023.
Undergraduate Research Assistants
Keshav Goel
Elodie Carel
Kai Holl
Tommy George
Nathaniel Santiago
Anna Thomann
Melissa Anderson
Tori Howard
Priyanka Maudgal
Yijun Zou
Richa Jain
Marinna Kaufman
Elizabeth Noronha
Isabel Altaf
Lab Alumni
Dr. David Hancock, postdoc at Cornell Univ. (Postdoctoral Researcher, 2018-2020)
Sanjana Kadirvel, graduate student at Tufts Univ. (Lab Manager 2018-2020)