Lab Team

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Wayne State Members

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Matthew B. Jennings is a clinical/community psychology doctoral candidate with a research interest in sleep and somatic conditions as they relate to psychological distress. As an 11-year U.S. Army combat veteran, Matthew also has clinical and research interests in veteran issues such as health and access to earned benefits. Matthew earned his undergraduate psychology degree in his home state of Washington at Saint Martin’s University and Abbey (O.S.B.). He joined Wayne State University’s Clinical Psychology Ph.D. program in 2019, working in both Dr. Paul Toro’s lab and Dr. Lumley’s lab. He has worked with several research groups throughout the country, including the Henry Ford Hospital, the Medical University of South Carolina, and Rush University, researching insomnia, cancer, and chronic pain, respectively. His doctoral dissertation (under Dr. Toro) focuses on mental and physical health outcomes of cohorts of homeless individuals in Detroit, MI, from the 1990s to 2022. In 2024-2025, Matthew is conducting his predoctoral internship at Henry Ford Health Center in Detroit, with a major rotation in behavioral sleep medicine. He currently plans to pursue a post-doctoral fellowship in sleep research.

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Marjorie “Marisa” Heule started our clinical psychology PhD program in 2021. She completed her bachelor’s degree in Political Science, French and Spanish at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She subsequently obtained a Master’s in Clinical Research Methods from Fordham University in New York. While completing her Master’s, Marisa worked at Columbia Irving Medical Center assisting on research studies investigating the neurodevelopmental correlates of chronic pain, such as attachment. Maris has strong interests in trauma, emotions, and physical symptoms, particiularly chronic pain. She is currently working with Dr. Lumley on projects investigating sexual abuse and women’s sexual functioning, anger expression and chronic pain, and perfectionism in chronic pain patients. She is conducting her doctoral dissertation, which compares the effects of three therapies presented as single-session interventions to people with musculoskeletal pain: CBT, Pain Reprocessing Therapy, and Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy. Marisa enjoys spending time with her husband and her dog, trying new foods and going for walks around town (probably while talking on the phone with one of her four sisters).

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Sabrina Blank graduated from Hope College in Michigan in 2022 with a major in psychology and a minor in neuroscience. She joined the clinical psychology PhD program at Wayne State in 2022. Her research interests include the relationship between emotion and physiological functioning, with particular interests in gastrointestinal health and pain. She has also worked in the lab of faculty member Dr. Rodlescia Sneed, studying health of people who have been incarcerated, and she is conducting therapy on a research trial for adolescents with cancer. In the future, she hopes to work with children and adolescents in a medical hospital setting and continue conducting research.

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Jacob Blank is a clinical psychology PhD student at Wayne State University working with Dr. Mark Lumley. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Temple University, where he also studied youth anxiety treatment and worked as a diagnostician at the Child & Adolescent Anxiety Disorders Clinic. Jacob then joined McLean Hospital’s Center for Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Research, where he studied the relationship between stress and decision-making in adult depression. He is currently interested in studying patient and therapist factors that may influence psychotherapy outcomes.

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Roberto Gonzalez-Prado began the Clinical Psychology Ph.D. program at Wayne State University in 2024. He graduated from San Diego State University with honors with a bachelor’s in psychology. As a first-generation college student raised by a Mexican mother, he was inspired by her and other mentors to pursue doctoral studies. Roberto is interested in the development of novel psychotherapy techniques to treat disorders/conditions with poor treatment outcomes, such as fibromyalgia and other nociplastic pain conditions, with a focus on adapting them for diverse cultural contexts. Roberto aspires to serve both Spanish- and English-speaking populations while working in academia, serving as a teacher and mentor of minority students, as his Roberto’s mentors and professors were for him. In his spare time, Roberto loves to marathon Lord of the Rings (Extended Edition), practice Yoga, and play RPG and RTS games on his PC.  

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Britney R. Abro is currently a study coordinator for an NIH-funded (RO1) study on psychological treatments for chronic neck and back pain, while working with PI Dr. Mark Lumley and PI Dr. John Burns from Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. Britney graduated from Wayne State University in 2023 with a B.S. in Psychology, a co-major in University Honors, and a minor in Biological Sciences. Her research interests lie within psychological and health interventions to optimize brain health, contributing to better overall wellbeing. She plans on applying to Ph.D. programs in clinical psychology, to start in 2025. Britney has many aspirations within her vocation, including becoming a licensed psychologist who conducts clinical therapy while studying the brain and implementing holistic changes to improve lifestyle. She also hopes to spread awareness of her work to the general public through podcasts, books, and having an overall media presence.

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NATIONAL & INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATIONS

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Lauren Krulis grew up in Melbourne, Australia, and came to New York to pursue graduate studies in psychology. She is a student in the Clinical Psychology PhD Program at the New School for Social Research in New York, and in 2024, will complete her internship at The New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute (NYPSI). Her clinical placements reflect her research interests in chronic pain and have included working with PTSD patients with chronic pain at the Brooklyn VA, and with severe mental illness and chronic pain at NCB Hospital. Additionally, she is a licensed physical therapist in NYC, and she has maintained a small private physical therapy practice treating patients with chronic pain throughout her time in graduate school. The integration of clinical and empirical work is important to Lauren, and she is committed to contributing to the literature to aid in providing relief and support to those that suffer with chronic pain. She has been a member of the Global Mental Health Lab at The New School, where they focus on ways to improve access to treatment through brief, scalable, and accessible mental health interventions. For her doctoral dissertation, Lauren is conducting a randomized trial to investigate the effects of an online pain neuroscience education and emotional processing intervention on pain-related outcomes in people with musculoskeletal pain. Dr. Mark Lumley has been mentoring and advising her throughout her dissertation and is a member of her dissertation committee.

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Valentina Barrios is a master’s-level clinical psychologist who has been in clinical practice for several years in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She also coordinates a special interest group focused on chronic primary pain in the Argentine Association for the Study of Pain, which is a chapter of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP). In addition to her clinical work, Valentina is on the teaching faculty at the University of Buenos Aires, and she is in the PhD program there. The research team that she is collaborating with studies maladaptive perfectionism, and her PhD research is on the association between PTSD and chronic primary pain. Dr. Mark Lumley of Wayne State is one of the directors of her doctoral research. Valentina aspires to continue doing research about chronic pain and trauma and to teach psychologists evidence-based approaches for chronic primary pain. She is passionate about helping people who suffer from chronic pain and believes that a combination of clinical care and research is essential to improving the lives of those affected by this condition.