Sunan received her dual Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Education Studies from Brandeis University and is currently a Master’s student in Developmental Psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research interests include how early childhood experiences shape children’s later executive functioning, emotion regulation, and mental health development. These interests have been shaped by her research experience at Brandeis University’s Cognition, Psychopathology, and Environment (CoPE) Lab, where she completed her honors thesis related to metacognitive beliefs, intolerance of uncertainty, and internalizing symptoms.
Sunan also has experience in quantitative and longitudinal data analysis through enrollment research, as well as clinical research focused on mood and cognition in adulthood and aging. She is especially interested in using diverse research approaches to study how early environments influence emotional and cognitive development. She has experience with psychophysiology and EEG and hopes to further expand her training in MRI and other developmental neuroscience methods to conduct affective neuroscience research in the DAN Lab.