Meet the Lab

Hello! I’m Mariah Ravet [m-rye-ah ruh-vay], hailing from Marinette, Wisconsin. I am a graduate research assistant in the YRR Lab. My current research interests include early life stress, adverse childhood experiences, substance use, and risky behaviors. In addition to research, I enjoy planting seeds and gardening, sewing fanny packs, bicycling, daydreaming about having enough pets to call a small zoo, and raising farm animals (although not in Gainesville).
 
Selected Publication:
Bennett, A., Ravet, M., & Gabrielli, J. A Systematic Review of Social Support Interventions for Youth in Foster Care. Available at SSRN 4750788.

I am a graduate student in the Youth Risk and Resilience Lab, with primary research interests in childhood maltreatment and health risk behaviors in marginalized adolescent populations. In addition to my research interests, my clinical interests include trauma, resilience, and parent-child relationship dynamics.
 
Sarah is currently working on a publication examining disability-related maltreatment

I began my graduate training at the University of Florida in 2024, with primary research interests in youth risk behavior prevention, mobile health tools, and media parenting interventions. Prior to this, I worked as an undergraduate research assistant in the Youth Risk and Resilience lab supporting qualitative content coding, conducting interviews with teens about substance content in the media, and assisting my lab mates with other ongoing research tasks. I have also gained experience writing abstracts, drafting manuscript sections, and presenting posters at regional and national conferences throughout my time with the Youth Risk and Resilience Lab.
 
Selected Publication:
Corcoran, E., Wydra, N., Tejada, N., Nelapati, S., & Gabrielli, J. (2023). A moderated mediation model of the relationship between adolescent screentime, online privacy cognitions and exposure to online substance marketing. Child & Family Social Work.

Hello! I am James Zhu, an undergraduate Psychology major. As a research assistant in the Youth Risk and Resilience Lab, I support Dr. Gabrielli and the graduate students by transcribing interviews, assisting with qualitative data coding, and assisting with the consent process. After I graduation, I plan to attend grad school and pursue a career in Clinical Psychology.

Hi! I’m Saila Roxas, an undergraduate Psychology (BCN) major on the pre-med track. As a research assistant in the YRR Lab, I support Dr. Gabrielli and the graduate students by transcribing interviews, conducting literature reviews, assisting with qualitative data coding, and participating in poster presentations. After graduation, I plan to attend medical school and pursue a career in pediatrics!   

Hi! My name is Karina Lewin and I am an undergraduate psychology (BA) major. As a research assistant in the lab, I support Dr. Gabrielli and the graduate students by conducting literature reviews, transcribing interviews, qualitative data coding, and participating in poster presentations. After graduation, I plan to take a gap year to further develop in areas of research and then apply to graduate school for pediatric psychology! 

Hi! I am Alexa Fleites, an undergraduate Psychology and Criminology major at UF. As a research assistant in the YRR Lab, I help Dr. Gabrielli and the graduate students with ongoing tasks for various research projects. After graduation, I plan to apply to Child Clinical Psychology Ph.D. programs. With this degree, I hope to work with marginalized communities to emphasize the importance of mental health and mental health treatments!   

Erin Corcoran finished her graduate training under the mentorship of Dr. Gabrielli in the Clinical and Health Psychology Program in 2024. Her dissertation was titled, “Understanding adolescent in-vivo exposure to vaping and cannabis content in the media” and she contributed to and lead many of the early projects within the lab. She completed her internship at the Charleston Consortium Psychology Internship Program and will be continuing on to postdoctoral training in New York City.  
 
Selected Publication: 
Corcoran, E., Wydra, N., Tejada, N., Nelapati, S., & Gabrielli, J. (2023). A moderated mediation model of the relationship between adolescent screentime, online privacy cognitions and exposure to online substance marketing. Child & Family Social Work. 

Athitheya graduated with a major in computer science from the University of Florida in 2024. As a research assistant, his contributions primarily included automating data management and data retrieval tasks with Python scripts. He has also created a web application as an interface for a data management task, contributed to a WordPress website, and used unsupervised Machine Learning models to group unlabeled text snippets.  Following his work in the Youth Risk and Resilience Lab, Athith began a master’s degree program in computer science at Columbia University.

I am a Psychology major at the University of Florida. As an undergraduate research assistant in the YRR lab, I have helped with content coding images, song lyrics, and TikTok videos uploaded by youth concerning their exposure to alcohol-related matters and other lab tasks. I have an invested interest in child maltreatment and crisis intervention and hope to further this study under Dr. Gabrielli’s mentorship. I plan on pursuing a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology upon graduation.  

I graduated from UF as a Health Science major with a minor in Public Health in 2024. I conducted an honors thesis project on media parenting as it relates to youth substance use. As an undergraduate research assistant, I also assisted with various projects in the lab, and I have an interest in online initiatives to minimize youth risk behaviors. In the future I plan to apply for medical school.

I graduated from UF with a Bachelor’s in Public Health in 2024. My role as an undergraduate research assistant involves supporting the lab with tasks for various projects with most of my work focused on the role of media in adolescent risk behavior. In the future, I will be applying to medical school with an interest in working with low socioeconomic populations and increasing equal access to healthcare resources. 

Emily Baker completed an honor’s thesis at the University of Florida examining COVID impacts on family functioning. She went on to obtain her Ph.D. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology at New York University after her graduation from UF.

Farwah Zaidi obtained an internship in User Experience Research following her graduation from the University of Florida. She plans to expand upon her training in digital interventions to improve the technology experience for users.

As a research assistant I assist Dr. Gabrielli and the graduate students with ongoing research tasks for active projects, such as content coding in NVivo and helping conduct literature reviews. I also conduct my own research project, and gain experience with other research activities. After graduation, I plan to take a year to gain more research experience, and then I intend to apply to Clinical Psychology Ph.D. programs.

Rachel Walton was selected as a University Research Scholar during her undergraduate training at UF.  She went on to obtain her Psy.D. in Clinical Psychology at George Washington University and hopes to continue her work with underserved populations. 

As an undergraduate research assistant, I contribute to lab tasks including literature searches for manuscripts and grant applications, data coding in NVivo, and measurement development. I have also assisted with drafting and submitting poster publication abstracts to the Society for Research in Child Development 2021 Biennial Conference. I am interested in researching the effects of parental maltreatment and parental substance abuse on minority and at-risk youth. Next year, I will begin applying to Clinical Psychology Ph.D. programs that offer an emphasis in child clinical psychology.

Following graduation from the University of Florida, Timbria Burke went on to graduate study in genetic counseling at Boston University. She received the prestigious Warren Alpert Scholarship in recognition of her potential and prior experiences.