Current Postdoctoral Fellows

Laili Boozary, PhD

Laili began her Postdoctoral Fellowship at the HPRC in February 2023. She earned her PhD in Cellular and Behavioral Neurobiology from The University of Oklahoma Norman Campus in 2022, where her research targeted reward processing (AKA the basal ganglia), including dopaminergic and other monoamine involvement. Dr. Boozary’s primary research interest is to understand the intersection of tobacco-use/addiction, health disparities, and neuroscience. Her work at the HPRC will focus on understanding tobacco-related health disparities from a neural perspective in order to inform treatment strategies for populations that have a hard time quitting.

 Bingjing Mao, PhD

Bingjing began her fellowship at the HPRC in August 2022 after earning her Ph.D. in Communication Studies from the University of Miami. Dr. Mao’s research program involves the intersection between media psychology, digital technology, and cancer communication. Specifically, her research aims to understand the cognitive mechanisms through which interactions in a technology-mediated environment can impact health outcomes. Additionally, she is interested in the emotional processes behind health decision-making. As a research fellow at the HPRC, Dr. Mao can envision contributing to the multidisciplinary scholarship of digital health by working with her mentors Drs. Michael Businelle and Jordan Neil.

Rose Shao, PhD

Ruosi (Rose) Shao began her fellowship at the HPRC in August 2022 after earning her PhD from Pennsylvania State University in the College of Communications. Dr. Shao's research focuses on leveraging communication technologies for social support and health intervention. She is passionate about mental health, emotion regulation, and the potential of artificial intelligence in fulfilling the social role of a companion for people with chronic conditions. Methodologically, she is interested in involving intensive longitudinal data and passive sensing data in mHealth to promote effective and targeted intervention.

Sarah Tonkin, PhD

Sarah started as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the HPRC in August 2022. Sarah earned her PhD in Clinical Psychology from The State University of New York at Buffalo. Dr. Tonkin's research seeks to identify psychological treatment mechanisms for smoking cessation and address treatment disparities by examining how these processes vary in populations that tend to benefit less from smoking interventions. To answer these questions, Sarah uses a translational approach that examines laboratory and “real-world” measurement of behavior, affect, and cognition. Her work at HPRC will integrate EMA, psychophysiology, and behavioral tasks to assess mechanisms and disparities.