The Columbia Couples Lab

Lab members

	Prof. Niall Bolger, Ph.D. Niall Bolger is Professor in the Department of Psychology at Columbia University. Currently he has three research interests. He studies adjustment processes in close relationships using intensive longitudinal diary studies and lab-based studies of dyadic behavior, emotion and physiology. He also studies personality processes as they are revealed in patterns of behavior, emotion, and physiology in daily life. Finally, he is interested in statistical methods for analyzing longitudinal and multilevel data. He teaches courses in adult relationships, research methods, and longitudinal data analysis. He is a Charter Member and Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, a member of the Society for Multivariate Experimental Psychology and of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology. He has served on the Social and Group Processes grant review panel of the National Institute of Mental Health and as Associate Editor of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: Interpersonal Relations and Group Processes.
	Turu (Gertraud) Stadler, Ph.D. Turu received her Diploma in Psychology from University of Eichstatt, Germany. She completed her Ph.D. at University of Hamburg, Germany. She is currently a Postdoc working with Prof. Niall Bolger. Her overarching research question is how people change their behavior and how they maintain behavior change in the long run. She is interested in theories of behavior change, self-regulation, motivation, volition, and the influence of social relations. Naturally this goes along with her interest in the measurement of behavior with diaries and physiological indicators as well as the analysis of longitudinal data.
	Kenzie Snyder, Lab Manager Kenzie Snyder graduated with a BA in psychology from Mount Holyoke College. She handles administrative responsibilities, coordinates studies, and works on her own research. Her research focuses on stress and support processes in couples. Specifically, she is exploring the idea of wanting distance from a partner as a positive coping technique during times of depression and/or stress. In addition, she is interested in support processes within families, and the transmission of stress from one family member to another. She plans to enter a Ph.D. program in social or developmental psychology.
	Alexandra Suppes, Ph.D. student Lexi received a BA in Philosophy with interdisciplinary honors through the Ethics in Society Program at Stanford University. While at Stanford, she also completed a MA in Psychology with a focus on cultural psychology under the direction of Hazel Markus. She is currently a fifth year in the psychology department at Columbia University. Presently, her research in dyadic communication and social identity exploits traditional methods of speech and discourse analysis to inform psychological processes.
	Jamil Zaki, Ph.D. student Jamil is a fifth year graduate student working in collaboration with Prof. Niall Bolger and Prof. Kevin Ochsner. He is interested in how people perceive each other's emotions, and how understanding someone else's emotion affects behavior. Currently, he is working on projects assessing the personality, physiological, and brain bases of empathic accuracy, as well on how empathic accuracy shapes health and social relationships.
	Jeff Craw, Ph.D. student Jeff graduated with a BA in Psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2005. As well, he completed an MA in Psychology at Pepperdine University in 2008. He is currently a first-year graduate student in the department working in collaboration with Prof. Niall Bolger. Although exact research ideas are still being formulated, he is interested in romantic relationships and their influence on physiology. More specifically, he hopes to study the types of social support that partners offer each other and the way(s) it influences health and physical well-being.
	Michelle Herrera, Study Coordinator Michelle is currently a fourth year undergraduate student majoring in Psychology at Columbia University. She is the Study Coordinator for the Diabetes study, which focuses on how social support affects self-care practices in Latino patients diagnosed with Type II Diabetes. She is also a Research Assistant for the Speech and Social Support Study, exploring the various ways couples display and perceive support. In the future, she plans to pursue a Ph.D. in clinical psychology.
	Sebastian Wagner, Diploma student Sebastian completed his studies at the Humoldt-University of Berlin, Germany, and is currently working on his thesis with Turu Stadler. His research focuses on how people can use different planning strategies and proactive coping in order to change and maintain their physical behavior. In a diary-based intervention study he plans to examine the feasibility, influences, and long-term effects of implementing such strategies in young adults.