Appetite Lab Team
At-a-Glance
- Susan Carnell, Ph.D., Principal Investigator
- Liuyi Chen, MS, Data analyst
- Sarah Ann Duck, BS, Research Program Coordinator
- Daisy Zhou, BS candidate, Undergraduate Intern
- Xinyi Shi, BS Candidate, Undergraduate Intern
Recent Members:
- Anahys Aghababian, MS, Research Coordinator
- Allison Ahn, BA, Research Coordinator
- Olufisayo Atanda Ogunleye, BS candidate, Undergraduate Intern
- Jenny Sadler, Ph.D., Post-doctoral Fellow
Collaborators:
Susan Carnell, Ph.D., Principal Investigator
Liuyi Chen, MS, Data analyst
Liuyi received her Master degree in Computer Science from Stevens Institute of Technology. She joined the Appetite Lab in July 2017, where she focuses on analysis of fMRI data on obesity and appetite in children and adults.
Sarah Ann Duck, BS, Research Program Coordinator
Sarah Ann received a BS in Molecular and Cellular Biology and Psychology from Johns Hopkins University and is currently applying to medical school. She joined the Appetite Lab as the Research Program Coordinator in June 2023. She is interested in researching the eating behavior of children and adolescents and accompanying neural correlates.
Anahys Aghababian, MS, Research Coordinator
Anahys received a BA in Psychology from Loyola University, where she took a special interest in health psychology. As the Appetite Lab’s main research coordinator Anahys contributed to projects including an MRI study of weight and eating behavior in children, and studies of behavioral outcomes of bariatric surgery, and health behaviors during the COVID pandemic.
Allison Ahn, BA, Research Coordinator
Allison received a BA in Psychology from UC Berkeley and hopes to continue her education in clinical psychology. She joined the Appetite Lab as research coordinator in March 2022. She is interested in researching the influences of adverse childhood experiences, culture, and socialization on the development of psychopathology in childhood and adolescence.
Jenny Sadler, Ph.D., Post-doctoral Fellow
Dr Jenny Sadler received her PhD in Nutrition from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she worked with Dr Kyle Burger to study eating behavior and brain response to sugar-sweetened beverages. She joined the Appetite lab in July 2020 to conduct research using neuroimaging and behavioral techniques to understand how children learn food preferences and make food decisions.
Elena Jansen, Ph.D.
Dr Elena Jansen received her PhD from the Queensland University of Technology in Australia. Here she developed and validated the Feeding Practices and Structure Questionnaire, which is now being used in multiple countries and languages. Her research investigates how children’s early relationships with their parents, and their home environment, relate to child health and behavioral outcomes – especially the development of child eating behaviors and weight. In the Appetite Lab, Elena is expanding her work into biobehavioral influences on weight. She is especially interested in the contribution of stress and caregivers other than mothers, especially fathers, in the development of children’s eating.
Kimberly Smith, Ph.D., Assistant Professor
Dr Kimberly Smith received her PhD in Neuroscience from Florida State University, where she worked with Dr Alan Spector to investigate the genetics of taste function using psychophysical methods in rodent models. In the Appetite Lab, she is interested in examining the neurobiological mechanisms underlying food choice and weight outcomes across the age and weight spectrum using behavioral and neuroimaging techniques in humans. Current projects include fMRI studies of Anorexia Nervosa and bariatric surgery.
Gita Thapaliya, Ph.D.
Dr Gita Thapaliya received her PhD from the University of Nottingham, UK, where she worked with Professor Sue Francis and Dr Gordon Moran to examine the gut-brain axis in Crohn’s disease using functional MRI. In the Appetite Lab, she is interested in understanding the role of the brain in appetite regulation and eating behavior in child obesity and during healthy development. Current projects include investigations of the shared neurobehavioral underpinnings of obesity and ADHD in children.
Join Our Team
Johns Hopkins Appetite Lab seeks Post-doctoral Research Fellow
The Appetite Lab (PI: Susan Carnell) in the Division of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, seeks a post-doctoral fellow to work on funded studies investigating eating behaviors and body weight in infancy, childhood, adolescence and adulthood, with a focus on neuroimaging studies of healthy populations and individuals with eating disorders.
This is a great opportunity to work on high-impact appetite and obesity research using behavioral and MRI data from RESONANCE, a unique, ongoing, large-scale longitudinal study following children from infancy through childhood, as well as a number of smaller-scale MRI studies in children and adults including novel imaging assays and behavioral phenotyping.
The fellow will get to join a thriving and supportive network of Johns Hopkins researchers with extensive expertise in human appetite, behavioral neuroscience, and MRI acquisition and analysis. This environment offers huge potential for developing independent research directions and establishing new collaborations.
Baltimore is a fun and rapidly developing US city with a vibrant arts scene, affordable neighborhood living, and a great location with good transport links and easy access to beautiful waterways and coastline as well as other exciting American cities (e.g. Washington DC, New York City).
Candidates should have a PhD in a relevant discipline (e.g. psychology, cognitive neuroscience, behavioral neuroscience, nutrition). A background in obesity/eating disorders research, eating behavior research, or/and neuroimaging (particularly fMRI) research, is essential.
If interested, please send a CV, statement of research interests, one or more PDFs of representative publications, and contact details of two references to [email protected].