Team Members
Sanne van Rooij, PhD
Principal Investigator
Dr. Sanne van Rooij is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory University School of Medicine, and the Director of the Stress and Neuromodulation Lab (SNL). She is a faculty member of the Laney Graduate School Neuroscience Program, and Associate Director of Scientific Outreach and investigator at the Grady Trauma Project.
Van Rooij received her PhD in Clinical Neuroscience in 2015 from Utrecht University in the Netherlands where she performed a pre- and post-treatment neuroimaging study in war veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). She moved to Atlanta for her postdoctoral fellowship with the Grady Trauma Project at Emory University. Mentored by Dr. Tanja Jovanovic and Dr. Kerry Ressler, she studied neural correlates of PTSD in civilians with recent and chronic trauma exposure.
In 2019, she joined the Emory faculty and in 2020 established the Stress and Neuromodulation Lab with funding from the National Institute of Mental Health and the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation. She supports the careers of trainees of varying levels through her program of research and is committed to conveying her research on the impacts of stress, trauma and personalized medicine approaches to improve brain health.
Ryan Langhinrichsen-Rohling, BA
TMS Study Research Coordinator
Ryan Langhinrichsen-Rohling is the current research coordinator for the TMS study. He graduated from Emory University in May 2023 with a BS in Psychology and a minor in Quantitative Sciences. He has been with Grady Trauma Project (GTP) since January 2022, working previously as an intern.
He plans to stay with GTP for an additional two years before going on to pursue a PhD in psychology. Langhinrichsen-Rohling has research aspirations with strong interests in trauma, exercise/sport and learning. He hopes to combine aspects of all of these interests into future research projects.
Sean Minton, MA
Research Coordinator
Sean Minton is a Stress and Neuromodulation Lab Research Coordinator. He recently completed a Master’s in Social Work degree at Georgia State University’s Andrew Young School of Policy Studies. In the future, he plans to help deliver trauma-informed care through communities-based initiatives using group fitness and recreational sports as an ancillary treatment modality. His research interests focus on the mediating effects of physical activity on adaptations to traumatic stress.
Minton also works to reduce the trauma burden of Black Atlantans while promoting more equitable access to care through Grady Trauma Project’s Anti-Racism and Research Dissemination workgroup. He was awarded the Kerry Ressler Travel Award for his submission to the 2019 Anxiety and Depression Association of America Conference.
Cecilia (Ceci) Hinojosa, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Cecilia (Ceci) Hinojosa, PhD, is a postdoctoral fellow currently working under the mentorship of Jennifer Stevens, PhD and Sanne van Rooij, PhD. Hinojosa completed her BA in Psychology at the University of Texas at El Paso and PhD in Experimental Psychology at Tufts University.
At Tufts, Hinojosa focused on determining whether pre-treatment brain activation can predict treatment response to prolonged exposure therapy in individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Currently, her research focuses on better understanding the neurocircuitry of PTSD using neuroimaging techniques and the role substance use may have in the development and maintenance of the disorder.
Rebecca Hinrichs, MS
Grady Trauma Project Program Director
Rebecca (Becky) Hinrichs is the Program Director of the Grady Trauma Project (GTP) and has been with the group since 2014. She holds a BS in Biology from Union College and an MS in Neuroscience from Emory University. She completed her early work in the study of small neuronal networks in invertebrates before joining GTP.
Hinrichs is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the program and a great first resource for all questions related to GTP. Her research focuses on the use of a simple physiological measurement of skin conductance response in the immediate aftermath of trauma as a predictor of the trajectory of PTSD related symptoms.
Natalie Merrill, PhD
Grady Trauma Project Program Manager
Natalie Merrill (she/her) joined Grady Trauma Project in 2022 as Manager of Program and Research. She holds a BS in Psychology from Spring Hill College and a PhD in Cognitive and Developmental Psychology from Emory University.
Merrill's research interests center around how individuals come to understand their sense of self and the world around them based on memories of their past emotional experiences. Her research has included investigations of parent-child intergenerational memory transmission, gender expression in narrative discourse and relations between memory characteristics and psychopathology following traumatic events.
Interns
- Emma Kingwell
- Puja Raol
- Malin Au, BA
Former Lab Members
- Bibian Borst, MSc
- Joshua Barbosa, MD
- Derrick Davis, BA
- Vyas Muralidharan, BA
- Lauren Ho, BA
- Trinidi Prochaska, BA
- Mohammad Sendi, PhD
- Lois Teye-Botchway, BA
- Emma West, BA
- Harita Yepuri, BA
- Helena Zeleke, BA
- Joshua Zhao, BA