Our Team

Women’s Mental Health Research Program

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Women’s Mental Health Research Program
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Lab Directory
WMHRP Our Team

The Women’s Mental Health Research Program (WMHRP) research team is comprised of faculty and staff from the Department of Psychiatry, as well as trainees from the various programs within the University of Illinois Chicago.

Pauline Maki PhD

  • Professor of Psychiatry, Psychology and Obstetrics & Gynecology
  • Director of Women’s Mental Health Research Program
  • Senior Director of Research, Center for Research on Women and Gender
For over 20 years, Dr. Pauline M. Maki has led a program of NIH-funded research focused on the role of sex steroid hormones on cognition, mood, brain function (neuroimaging) and stress responsivity in women. Women’s cognitive abilities, mood, and response to stress can be affected by changes in sex hormones, like estrogen, including changes that occur during the menopausal transition, during pregnancy, and across the menstrual cycle. In particular, the goal of her work is to improve the lives of women by identifying factors that alter their risk of cognitive decline and affective disorders.

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Pauline Maki

Tory Eisenlohr-Moul PhD

  • Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology
  • Associate Director of Translational Research in Women’s Mental Health
  • Department of Psychiatry
  • University of Illinois Chicago College of Medicine
Dr. Eisenlohr-Moul is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at UIC, and holds an additional courtesy appointment in the Department of Psychology. She is a licensed clinical psychologist with specialized fellowship training in the pathophysiology, assessment, and treatment of hormone-related psychiatric disorders-- particularly premenstrual disorders.

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Tory Eisenlohr-Moul

Ece Kilic MS

  • Senior Research Specialist, Women's Mental Health Research Program
Ece joined the lab in 2017 to work with Dr. Pauline Maki on an NIH-funded study on the use of stellate ganglion blockade for managing vasomotor symptoms in women. Ece received her Master’s in Psychology from DePaul University; her thesis focused on cognition and visual word recognition. She received her B.A. in Psychology with a minor in Women’s and Gender Studies from the University of Michigan – Dearborn. She has conducted research in cognitive and social psychology, including memory, perception, gender and prejudice.

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Ece Kilic

Tyler James Wishard PhD

  • Senior Research Specialist, Women's Mental Health Research Program

Dr. Wishard is a researcher in the Women's Mental Health Research Program directed by Dr. Maki. Their project focuses on characterizing hippocampal subfield anatomy during the perimenopausal transition.

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Tyler James Wishard

The Women’s Mental Health Research Program relies on a strong network of multidisciplinary collaborators within UIC, nationally, and internationally, to advance research on women’s mental and cognitive health. A selection of researchers and clinicians we are currently collaborating with are included below.

Leah Rubin PhD, MPH

  • Assistant Professor of Neurology
  • Johns Hopkins University
Dr. Leah Rubin and Dr. Pauline Maki have collaborated on research related to mental and cognitive health of women across the lifespan since Dr. Rubin began her training at UIC in 2003. Now at Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Rubin continues to work with the Women’s Mental Health Research Program in moving forward her program of research to elucidate the neuroendocrine mechanisms contributing to mental and cognitive health in women. She focuses on the effect of sex steroid hormones, glucocorticoids, vasopressin, and oxytocin on cognition and mental health in healthy women, women living with HIV, and female psychiatric patients. A central long-term goal is to improve the cognitive health of HIV-infected women and women with psychiatric illnesses through an interdisciplinary research career that incorporates epidemiological, mechanistic, and intervention science.

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Leah Rubin

Lisa Tussing-Humphreys PhD, MS, RDN

  • Assistant Professor of Medicine
  • Assistant Director, University of Illinois Cancer Center Diet and Behavior Shared Resource
Dr. Lisa Tussing-Humphreys and her team collaborate with the WMHRP on research focusing on perinatal mood, diet and gut microbiome. Dr. Tussing-Humphreys other research interests include obesity-associated iron metabolism dysfunction and its relationship to health status and disease risk. A registered dietitian, Dr. Tussing-Humphreys earned her doctoral degree in human nutrition from the UIC College of Applied Health Sciences in 2009, writing her dissertation on hepcidin-mediated iron deficiency of obesity.

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Lisa Tussing-Humphreys

Jenna Duffecy PhD

  • Professor of Clinical Psychiatry
  • Department of Psychiatry, UIC
Dr. Duffecy is a Professor of Clinical Psychiatry in the Mood and Anxiety Disorders program at UIC. She serves as the director of UIC Resiliency Center for Student Wellbeing as well as the Director of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Research and Services. She specializes in providing evidence-based intervention to improve mental health and stress management with a focus on issues relevant for students, including anxiety, lifestyle changes and professional development. Much of her research focuses on how digital tools can be used to improve health and mental health.

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Jenna Duffecy

Stacie Geller PhD

  • Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology
  • Director, Center for Research on Women and Gender
  • Director, National Center of Excellence in Women’s Health

Dr. Geller is a health services researcher and epidemiologist with expertise in women’s health, complementary and alternative medicine, and maternal mortality and morbidity. Dr. Geller has conducted research related to maternal mortality and morbidity since 1999.

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Stacie Geller