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Natania Crane PhD

  • Assistant Professor
  • Associate Director of the UIC Recovery Clinic
  • Department of Psychiatry, UIC
Dr. Crane is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and the Associate Director of the UIC Recovery Clinic. She is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist. Her research utilizes multiple methods (i.e., fMRI, EEG, cognitive, clinical, and self-report measures) to examine the brain and behavioral risk factors and consequences of Substance Use Disorders, especially Cannabis Use Disorder. An important aspect of her research is studying the relationship between clinical mental health factors and substance use, particularly between depression and cannabis use. Dr. Crane received her PhD in Clinical Psychology, completed her Clinical Internship and T32 Postdoctoral Fellowship at UIC, with an emphasis in Neuropsychology. She has received Early Career Travel Awards from the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, the Society of Biological Psychiatry, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the American Psychological Foundation, as well as a K23 Early Career Development Award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

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Natania Craine

Julia Brooks MA

  • Graduate Research Assistant
  • Clinical Neuropsychology Extern
  • Graduate Student, Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program
  • Department of Psychology, UIC
Julia Brooks is a Clinical Neuropsychology Extern in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). Julia is a 4th year student in the UIC doctoral program in Clinical Psychology, and received her Master of Arts in Clinical Psychology in 2020. Julia is interested in understanding how neuropsychological processes such as inhibitory control and executive functioning influence behavioral outcomes, and her research is focused on understanding brain-behavior relationships in the context of young adult substance use.

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Julia Brooks

Rebecca Denson BA

  • Graduate Research Volunteer, REWARD Lab
Rebecca is a student in the Clinical Psychology doctoral program at the University of Illinois Chicago. She is interested in researching affective and biological correlates of cannabis and nicotine use, relationships between substance use and psychopathology, and the development of substance use disorders. Her ongoing MA research project is examining the relationship between cannabis use, social context, and mood using ecological momentary assessment. Rebecca received her BA in Cognitive Neuroscience from Washington University in St. Louis and then worked at the New York State Psychiatric Institute-Columbia University researching cannabis use disorder interventions and therapeutic applications of cannabinoids.

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Rebecca Denson

Matthew P. Gunn PhD

  • Research Post-doctoral Fellow, REWARD laB

Matthew Gunn has expertise coding in MATLAB adapted toward neuro-imaging data analysis, database management, and plugin creation. He earned his PhD in Psychology and B.S. in Chemistry with a focus on Biochemistry under the mentorship of Dr. David Gilbert at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale.

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Matthew P. Gunn

Emily Jones BA

  • Graduate Research Assistant, REWARD Lab
  • Department of Psychiatry, UIC

Emily is a Clinical Psychology doctoral student at UIC working under Dr. Natania Crane’s mentorship. Emily is interested in early life trauma and adversity as it relates to risk for subsequent psychopathology, especially substance use disorders.

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Anna Li BS

  • Research Volunteer

Anna is a medical student at the University of Illinois College of Medicine. They received two degrees in chemistry and math from the University of Illinois Chicago in 2021. They are interested in understanding what factors contribute to various mental health conditions, including substance use disorders and comorbid disorders.

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Anna Li

Morgan Pearlman BS

  • Graduate Research Assistant, REWARD Lab
  • Department of Psychiatry, UIC
Morgan is a Clinical Psychology doctoral student with the mentorship of Dr. Natania Crane at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). She is interested in exploring the emotional and neurobiological mechanisms underlying substance misuse, particularly related to cannabis. Building upon work conducted as an undergraduate at UIC and a research assistant at Yale, Morgan is currently exploring distinctions in reward motivation and experience of reward among cannabis users.

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Morgan Pearlman

Shahd Smadi MA

  • Research Associate, REWARD Lab
Shahd received a Bachelor of Science in Neuroscience from the University of Illinois Chicago in the Spring of 2020. She recently obtained her master’s from the University of Chicago. She has been involved in the research of neuropharmacology since her time as an undergraduate at the University of Illinois Chicago. Shahd is interested in understanding the effects of brain injury and substance use on behavior.

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Shahd Smadi

Ryan M. Sullivan PhD

  • Research Collaborator, REWARD Lab and CCAN Lab
  • Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of California, San Diego
Ryan M. Sullivan is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of California, San Diego and is a research collaborator in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Illinois Chicago. His primary research interests consist of examining risks for and consequences of substance use in adolescence and young adulthood, with a specific emphasis on the effects of cannabis use on the brain and its intersection with psychopathology. He researches these questions using multi-modal approaches, including, behavioral, cognitive, and neuroimaging measures.

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Ryan M. Sullivan