Cindy H. Liu, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Developmental Risk and Cultural Resilience Program within Pediatric Newborn Medicine and Psychiatry at Brigham and Women's Hospital. A licensed clinical psychologist, she serves as the Director of the NICU Parent Mental Health program. Her research focuses on emotional and relational stress on mental health across the lifespan and in understudied populations. Her current work examines generative AI in the lives of adolescents and young adults. Using national, longitudinal, and parent-teen dyadic data, her team asks who turns to chatbots for companionship and emotional support, whether trusting AI for mental health advice predicts later help-seeking from a professional, how parents respond to their children's AI use, and what role these tools play in adolescent identity development. She leads the AI Health and Human Development Initiative (www.aihhd.org).
Her lab's other studies follow more than 500 Chinese and Taiwanese American adolescents and their parents across three waves (www.thebobaproject.com), U.S. young adults from the start of the pandemic through the present (CARES Project), perinatal families and their infants (PEACE Study), and national college samples including the Healthy Minds Study and ACHA-NCHA. This work has produced a measure of youths' sense of assurance, safety, and security, along with evidence on family communication, racial discrimination, and college mental health care. Across projects, the aim is to identify modifiable targets that reduce mental health disparities and to give clinicians, universities, and policymakers usable evidence.
Dr. Liu has held nearly continuous federal funding for two decades and currently leads NIH-funded studies of adolescent and young adult mental health. She was named a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher in 2023, placing her among the top 1 percent of researchers worldwide by citations in her discipline. She was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Behavioral Medicine in 2025. Her mentorship has been recognized with the Harvard Medical School A. Clifford Barger Excellence in Mentoring Award in 2026, along with the Brigham and Women's Hospital Mentor Award in 2026 and mentoring awards from the Mass General Brigham Departments of Pediatrics in 2026 and Psychiatry in 2025. Her research has been featured in outlets including the New York Times, USA Today, and CBS News.
Dr. Liu received her degree in Clinical Psychology from the University of Oregon, completed her clinical internship at McLean Hospital and a postdoctoral fellowship at Boston Children's Hospital, and served as Director of Multicultural Research at the Commonwealth Research Center at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center before joining Brigham and Women's Hospital.
Meet the Team
Cindy H. Liu, Ph.D.
Principal Investigator
Faculty
Natalie Feldman, M.D.
Attending Psychiatrist
Natalie Feldman, M.D., is a BWH Women's Mental Health Fellow who received an HMS Dupont Warren to study perinatal anxiety. Originally from Northern California, she completed her undergraduate degree at Harvard University and medical school training at the University of Chicago. Her interests include women's mental health as well as digital mental health. She is a Leadership Fellow through the APA/APAF Leadership Fellowship, as well as a Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry Fellow. Natalie co-writes a monthly advice column on digital psychiatry for the Massachusetts Psychiatric Society. She plans to pursue a fellowship in Women's Mental Health.
Fabiola Silletti, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Fabiola Silletti is a PhD candidate in Human Relations Sciences, Psychology: Cognitive, Emotional, and Communicative Processes at the University of Bari Aldo Moro (Italy), where she earned an M.S. in Clinical Psychology. As a scholar, she is interested in the developmental processes contributing to risk or resilience across societies and over the lifespan. Her current research at the Developmental Risk and Cultural Resilience Laboratory examines the effects of COVID-19 on women during the perinatal period (i.e., pregnancy and postpartum) and their infants in terms of stress, resilience, well-being, and social support.
Amanda Koire, M.D., Ph.D.
Attending Psychiatrist
Amanda Koire, M.D., Ph.D. is a PGY-3 Research Track Psychiatry resident at Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School. She received her degrees from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, where she completed a Ph.D. in Quantitative and Computational Biosciences. She is a co-founder of the National Reproductive Psychiatry Trainee Interest Group (www.repropsychtrainees.com) and has published research on perinatal mental health in the Archives of Women’s Mental health and BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth. Amanda plans to pursue a career as a perinatal psychiatrist and researcher.
Mary R. Shen, M.D., M.S.
Attending Psychiatrist
Mary R. Shen, MD, MS is an associate psychiatrist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an Instructor at Harvard Medical School in the Department of Psychiatry. Her work focuses on intergenerational Asian American mental health, culturally sensitive care, novel therapeutics, and leadership development. She is passionate about creative, evidence-based approaches that help people feel more connected, understood, and able to live meaningful lives.
Fellows
Chang (Jenny) Zhao is a developmental scientist with a PhD in Family and Human Development from Arizona State University and a BA in Psychology from Pennsylvania State University. She conducts culturally and contextually informed research within ethnically and racially minoritized communities. Her current work focuses on how families' ecologies (e.g., neighborhoods and activity spaces) shape family processes, parental mental health, and youth development in U.S. Latinx families. She is dedicated to expanding her research on ethnic-racial socialization and mental health in Asian American families.
Jenny Zhao, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
_edited_edited.jpg)
Katharine Brieger, M.D., Ph.D. is a PGY-2 Psychiatry Resident on the Research Track at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. She completed her degrees at the University of Michigan Medical School and School of Public Health, where her research in epidemiology focused on gene-environment interactions relevant to neurodevelopment and on modifiable behaviors impacting women’s health. With the DRCR lab, she plans to work with the CARES data to explore the relationships between physical and mental health behaviors in young adults. Ultimately, she plans to pursue a career as both a researcher and clinical psychiatrist.
Katharine Brieger, M.D., Ph.D.
Psychiatry Fellow
G. Alice Woolverton earned her PhD in Clinical Psychology from Suffolk University and her BA in English from Amherst College. She completed her predoctoral clinical training at Massachusetts General Hospital working with children and adolescents. As a scholar, Alice is focused on reducing and preventing the high costs of racism on youths’ mental wellbeing; her current work evaluates a caregiver-child antiracism program for white families. She is also interested in unpacking promotors of youth psychological health during periods of stress, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. She has particular expertise using qualitative and mixed research methods.
G. Alice Woolverton, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Michel holds a Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology from Lausanne University in Switzerland. He is in his last year of PhD at the University of Mons, Belgium with the Excellence of Science (EOS) scholarship sponsored by the FWO-FNRS foundation which aims at studying the transmission of resilience within families. His thesis focuses on triadic biobehavioral synchrony to better understand how stress shapes family interactions with a special focus on attachment and resilience.
Michel’s collaboration with the Developmental Risk and Cultural Resilience Laboratory focuses on the PEACE data by exploring parent-child interactions and synchrony.
Michel Sfeir, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Research Staff
Wenbo Zhang, M.A.
Graduate Research Assistant
Wenbo received his BA and in Psychology and Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences from Northwestern University and his MA in Clinical Psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University. Prior to joining the lab, Wenbo was working as a research assistant at Dr. Christine Cha’s Lab for Clinical and Developmental Studies, studying suicidal ideations and self-injurious thoughts and behaviors among adolescents. He was also working as a research assistant at pediatric Behavioral Health Integration Program and as a project coordinator at Dr. Beatrice Beebe’s Communication Science lab. He is interested in developing culturally-adapted, cost-effective, and scalable interventions for Chinese and Chinese American adolescents who are at risk of mental health disorders, and he wishes to pursue a PhD in clinical psychology to further investigate culturally-adapted evidence-based treatment for the population.
Hannah Feng, B.A.
Graduate Research Assistant
Hannah Feng is a Counseling Psychology Ph.D. students at Fordham University's Graduate School of Education. She received her B.A. in Psychology and International Studies with a minor in Business Administration from the University of Michigan. Prior to entering her Ph.D., Hannah received a research grant from Fulbright Canada to conduct a program evaluation on an immigrant and refugee youth community intervention. She is passionate about conducting community-engaged intervention research with cultural and sexual minority groups and expanding mental health access for marginalized populations.
Graduate & Undergraduate Research Assistants
Felix Lou is currently a sophomore at Vanderbilt University studying Medicine, Health, and Society and Asian American Studies. He is interested in learning about and researching the interplay of culture, identity development, and belonging to contextualize youth mental health disparities. Felix is also a research assistant at a Vanderbilt lab developing a program to increase connectedness between LGBTQ+ youth and their parents.
Felix M. Lou
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Yutian Li is an undergraduate at Harvard College, studying Cognitive Neuroscience with a minor in Government. She is passionate about mental health access and cultural appropriate care for the AAPI community. At Harvard, Yutian is a peer counselor, helping students with mental health concerns through non-directive, confidential dialogue. Outside of school, she is a racial justice public speaker who has spoken at MA state house, Boston Children’s, MIT, and more to advocate for policy supporting marginalized youths. Yutian hopes to pursue a MD-MPH degree in the future to advance mental health access.
Yutian Li
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Chelsie holds an Ed.M. in Human Development and is currently pursuing a Certificate of Advanced Study in School Counseling at Harvard Graduate School of Education. She is completing her practicum at Somerville High School, supporting college- and career-readiness and contributing to mental-health initiatives focused on prevention, early identification, and referral pathways.
Chelsie’s practice is trauma-informed and culturally responsive, centering family–school–community partnerships. Her interests include the intersecting identities of immigrant families, ecosystem supports that help students thrive, and the global dimensions of mental health, especially how diagnostic processes influence access to compassionate, evidence-informed care. She has worked with youth across school and community settings in the U.S. and internationally and is passionate about reducing barriers to services, strengthening protective factors, and translating research into everyday counseling practice.
Chelsie Wong, Ed.M.
Graduate Research Assistant
Lab Alumni
Chloe Bancel
Monica Bennett
Maddie Bradley
Isabel Brown
Ivo Cerda
Maya Chan
Andrew Chang
Angela Chen
Shou En Chen
Katrina Chen
Zishu Chen
Janey Chiang
Dorothy Chyung
Emma Clark
Rachel Conrad
Callie Ding
Abdelrahman ElTohamy
Yuxin (Megan) Fu
Noah Garberg
Irene Gonsalvez
Maria Henriksen
Alice Hibara
Yuan Hu
Sherry (Kexin) Huang
Yu-Tien Hsu
Sunah Hyun
Shweta Iyer
Qingyu Jiang
Amie Kang
Sabrina "Sarah" Kazi
Sennür Khoso
Yutung Lan
Karen Lang
Piper Larkin
Scott Lee
Jason Li
Yinan Liang
Annika Liu
Ava Lu
Candice Ma
Anjeli Macaranas
Anthony Menor
Melissa Morgan
Vi Nguyen
Ema Noonan
Chidinaobim (Dinobi) Nwodo
Ani Ouligan
Ava Qiu
Jenny Phan
Natasha Ramanayake
Ritika Rastogi
Sarah Rocha
Liana De La Rosa
Leah Sarver
Lydia Smith
Brittney Sy
Gabriela Taslitsky
Jessica Wang
Vivian Wang
Pei Wang
Finneas Wong
Sylvie Wong
Maxwell Workman
Emily Wu
Ge Xu
Andrea Yessaillian
Jobi Yeung
Meirong You
Li Wei Kyle Yuan
Emily Zhang
Michael Zhang
Hannah Zwiebel
Alice Tseng
William Xuan