Meet The Team

Lee Robertson is a 5th-year PhD candidate in the Joiner Lab. Their research interests lie in identifying risk and resilience factors for adverse mental health outcomes, especially depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress, and suicide ideation, in socially – especially intersectionally – marginalized populations. They primarily focus on the experiences of transgender and gender-diverse individuals, but they also study people of color, LGBQ+ individuals, and incarcerated individuals. Lee is also particularly interested in studying the influence of higher order systems, such as public policy, community resources, and social determinants of health, on mental health.

Morgan L. Robison is a graduate student at Florida State University. Her interests include understanding risk factors that increase the capacity for suicide alongside theories around lethality and ideation to action. She is interested in working with vulnerable populations to learn about the cultural and cognitive factors related to suicidal behaviors. This work has led to moderational and mediational explorations of metadehumanization and self-dehumanization on suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Her goals are to understand lethality within the ideation-to-action framework to detect and develop effective interventions for suicidal behavior.

Nikhila S. Udupa’s research focuses broadly on the intersection of disordered eating and suicidal thoughts and behaviors, including how social behaviors contribute to the development of both. Her work ranges from examining factors that exacerbate suicide risk among those with eating disorders to identifying behavioral biomarkers of suicide and disordered eating. Nikhila additionally has interests in uncontrollability of suicidal thought and how a lack of perceived control may increase risk for suicidal behaviors. Outside the lab, Nikhila enjoys fiber arts and other crafts and hanging out with her cat.

Marie T. Campione is a PhD student in the Joiner Lab. Her program of research centers on psychometrics, with an emphasis on developing, refining, and validating measures used to assess constructs associated with suicide risk. She also investigates the latent structure of psychological constructs to clarify their dimensionality and improve measurement precision.

Research Assistants: Tvisha Sarkar, Emma Oliveras, Madalynn Stackow

Tyler B. Rice is interested in studying distal and proximal risk factors for suicidal thoughts and behaviors, particularly in regard to minoritized groups, military populations, and individuals with substance use disorders. Her overall goal is to improve detection of at-risk individuals to prevent suicide attempts. In her free time, Tyler enjoys being outside and exploring the parks around Tallahassee.

Andrew J. Kurtz is a second-year PhD student in the Joiner Lab. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Philosophy from the University of Toledo. His research focuses on the role of adverse interpersonal experiences—invalidation, rejection, discrimination, and ostracism—in the development of suicidal ideation and the transition from suicidal thoughts to behaviors, seeking to understand how these experiences give rise to the interpersonal states central to the ITS. To advance this line of work, he is currently developing measures to assess how individuals internalize and perpetuate the invalidation they receive from others.

Research Assistants: Ava DeMaio, Olivia Mesa, Olivia Pielak, Elizabeth Quijada, May Sulema

Sara Prostko is a first-year doctoral student in the Joiner Lab. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and a Bachelor of Music in Flute Performance from Lawrence University. Prior to coming to FSU, she worked at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Addiction Psychiatry under Dr. Joji Suzuki. Sara’s research interests are broadly on suicide treatment, prevention, and the factors that contribute to suicidal ideation. In her free time, Sara enjoys paddleboarding, Trivia, and spending time with her cats.

Andrew J. Lodge graduated from Florida State University in 2023 with dual degrees in Psychology and Statistics. As an undergraduate student, he researched virtue-oriented transdiagnostic interventions for suicide and refined measures of suicide-related constructs under the mentorship of Drs. Thomas Joiner and Sean Dougherty. After graduating, he continued researching modifiable mechanisms for suicide risk factors as a Research Project Manager in Dr. Sarah Brown’s ASPIRE Lab. He now works under the co-advisement of Drs. Joiner and Brown. Andrew’s primary research interests include suicide measurement and applying ambulatory assessment and causal methods to improve suicide prediction and intervention. He is particularly interested in focusing on populations that have been historically underrepresented in suicide research and disproportionately affected by suicide-related conditions.

Athena Thai is a first-year PhD student in the Joiner Lab. She graduated with a BA in Psychology from Rutgers University in 2025 and previously worked with Dr. Jessica Hamilton to study adolescent suicide, sleep, and social media use. Athena is broadly interested in understanding the connection between maladaptive coping behaviors and emotion regulation. Specifically, she hopes to identify how emotion dysregulation may contribute to suicide, self-injury, and disordered eating in vulnerable groups, with the ultimate goal of creating targeted interventions. In her free time, Athena enjoys trying new cafes, reading, and watching movies.

Kyle Williams is a first-year clinical psychology PhD student in the Joiner Lab at Florida State University. Williams completed his master’s degree at Teachers College, Columbia University and graduated Cum Laude from the University of Florida with a BS in psychology. His research interests focus on contributing to the field of psychology by exploring ways to destigmatize help-seeking behaviors for mental health care among African American men as a means to reduce suicide risk. Williams is determined to construct progressive research to provide answers to what has yet to be discovered in regard to cultural competence and racial disparities in society.