Wade Alberty  

Technical Support Specialist III  

Wade Alberty has joined the technical support team for Psychological and Brain Sciences, moving over from WashU IT. Wade has been a member of Washington University since 2008. He initially was at the medical campus, with custodial services management for three years, then moved to the Law School technical support team until around 2019 when they were adsorbed by WashU IT. He is excited to be back to the more personal environment that P&BS provides. Wade has a degree in journalism, and has worked as a writer for newspapers, websites and sports publications. He’s also worked on-air in radio, and as an emcee for trivia and bingo nights.   

Wade lives in Edwardsville, IL with his wife Erin (who has an RN in radiation oncology at the John Cochran V.A. Hospital) along with their two kids, Bree and Finn, ages 7 and 8. On Thursday nights you will find him hosting/calling “Beer Bingo” at Third Wheel Brewing brewery in St. Peters, MO, where he and Erin are part owners. He is an avid sports fan and loves supporting the Cardinals, City SC, Blues and Battlehawks.  He enjoys playing baseball/corkball, golf and is thinking about trying soccer.   

 

 

Raquel R. Cabral

Director of the Psychological Service Center & Associate Director of Clinical Training   

Dr. Raquel Cabral serves as the Director of the Psychological Service Center and the Associate Director of Clinical Training. Her dedication to mental health and well-being is reflected in the numerous leadership roles and clinical positions she has held throughout her career.  

Prior to joining the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dr. Cabral was at Washington University School of Medicine, where she developed wellness counseling services for Graduate Medical Education. In previous positions, she directed departments that championed health promotion and gender equity initiatives at Florida Atlantic University. She received her Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from Brigham Young University.   

In her free time, Raquel enjoys reading, traveling, exploring new restaurants, and spending time outdoors hiking, running, and cycling.   

 

 

Rebecca C. Cox

Assistant Professor  
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences  

Dr. Rebecca Cox directs the Sleep, Circadian Rhythms, and Psychopathology (SCRAP) Laboratory. The SCRAP Lab studies the role of sleep and circadian rhythm disruption in the etiology and treatment of anxiety-related disorders by trying to answer two integrative questions: 1. How do the downstream consequences of sleep and circadian rhythm disruption for physiological, cognitive, and affective function contribute to the development of anxiety-related disorders? and 2. How can we leverage sleep and circadian medicine (e.g., light therapy, cognitive behavior therapy for insomnia) to create novel treatment approaches for anxiety-related disorders? Rebecca’s work seeks to answer these questions using a multimethod approach, including salivary melatonin assays, actigraphy, ecological momentary assessment, sleep diaries, and self-report measures.  

Prior to joining WashU, Rebecca was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Colorado. She received her PhD in clinical psychology at Vanderbilt University and her clinical internship at Western Psychiatric Hospital/University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.  

In her free time, Rebecca enjoys hiking, baking, trying new restaurants, and spending timing with her husband, Lance, and their dog, Ringo.   

   

 

Ellen Fitzsimmons-Craft 

Associate Professor of Psychological & Brain Sciences and Psychiatry   
Director, mHealth Research Core of the Institute of Clinical and Translational Sciences  

Dr. Ellen Fitzsimmons-Craft is an Associate Professor of Psychological & Brain Sciences and Psychiatry at Washington University in St. Louis. She also serves as Director of the Health Research Core of the Institute of Clinical and Translational Sciences and is a licensed psychologist. She has established programmatic lines of research centering on the use of technology for eating disorder prevention and treatment, eating disorder screening, sociocultural etiological and maintenance factors for eating disorders, eating disorder recovery, and college mental health.   

Dr. Fitzsimmons-Craft’s work aims to disseminate evidence-based interventions from research to practice as well as extend treatments in ways that will reach the large number of people in need of care for mental health problems but who are not receiving services. Dr. Fitzsimmons-Craft is passionate about increasing access to scalable, evidence-based mental health services, collaborating with numerous industry partners, non-profit organizations, and statewide groups in the U.S. in order to do so.    

Her work has been funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, the Office on Women’s Health in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the National Eating Disorders Association, and the Klingenstein Third Generation Foundation, among others. She is a Fellow in the Academy for Eating Disorders, an Appointed Founding Member of the American Psychological Association’s Office of Health Care Innovation Advisory Committee for Mental Health Technology, Treasurer of the Academy of Psychological Clinical Science, and an Expertscape World Expert in Feeding and Eating Disorders.   

Prior to joining the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences as her primary academic home, Dr. Fitzsimmons-Craft was a faculty member at the School of Medicine at WashU for 8 years. She received her BA in psychology from the University of Notre Dame, her PhD in clinical psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, completed her clinical psychology internship at The University of Chicago Medicine, and completed her postdoctoral fellowship at Washington University School of Medicine.   

In her free time, Dr. Fitzsimmons-Craft enjoys visiting local farmers’ markets, spending time in St. Louis’ amazing parks, and going on adventures with her kids.   

 

 

Derek Isaacowitz  

Professor of Psychological & Brain Sciences  
Director of the Lifespan Lab  

Derek Isaacowitz is thrilled to finally be here at WashU after delaying his arrival for what seemed like a very long year. He comes to WashU after faculty positions at Brandeis and Northeastern.  

Derek directs the Lifespan Lab, which is focused on understanding how emotional processes do and do not change across adulthood and old age, using a variety of in-lab (eye tracking, psychophysiology, VR) and ambulatory (EMA, eye tracking, psychophysiology) approaches.   

Derek grew up in New York City, attended college at Stanford and did his Ph.D in Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. When not working, you might find him attempting to get his two middle-schoolers to do their homework, or trying to find passable bagels and/or sushi around St. Louis.  

  

 

Josh Oltmanns

Assistant Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences  

Dr. Josh Oltmanns and his Personality, Mental Health, and AI research laboratory investigate linguistic and behavioral markers of personality and psychopathology. His research examines personality and psychopathology structure, change, and associations with health outcomes. The lab uses tools like Large Language Models to uncover nuanced features that may improve understanding and assessment of personality and psychopathology in the clinic and in daily life.  

The lab fosters an interdisciplinary atmosphere and is focused on developing AI with a focus on equity. Josh received his PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Kentucky and was previously an assistant professor at SMU and Xavier University.   

In his free time, Josh enjoys music, sports, and spending time with family and friends.  

 

 

Christine Schuermann  

Accounting Assistant II  

Christine Schuermann grew up in Chicago and moved to St. Louis in 2003. Christine has a strong background in customer service and administrative experience. She has a BA from National-Louis University and became a Registered Medical Assistant from St. Louis College of Health Careers in 2019.  Most recently came to WashU from City of Creve Coeur. She has worked at various companies over her career but enjoyed working the most at Northwestern University and wanted to get back to the higher education industry. She is thrilled to be at WashU and looking forward to a long career at the University. Christine has 2 grown children that live out of town in Minneapolis and Chicago. In her free time Christine enjoys traveling, hiking and reading.