Emma Edenbaum is a graduate student in the clinical psychology doctoral program at Florida State University, under the mentorship of Dr. Thomas Joiner. Emma’s research interests focus on the effect of inflexible negative interpretation biases on the development of self-injurious thoughts and behaviors. Before she was a member of the Joiner Lab, Emma researched nonsuicidal self-injury at Oberlin College and graduated in 2021 with a Bachelor of Arts in psychology. She then worked for two years as the head research assistant and lab manager of the Schacter Memory Lab at Harvard University, where she studied episodic future thinking and autobiographical memory. In her free time, Emma can be found listening to bird calls and rattling off fun animal facts.
Undergraduate Research Assistants: Nicole Aitchison, Salome Kang, Emma Oliveras, Drew Sexton
Andrew 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.
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.
Undergraduate Research Assistants: Ava DeMaio, Olivia Mesa, Olivia Pielak, Elizabeth Quijada, May Sulema
Tyler 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.
Athena Thai is a first-year Ph.D. 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 Ph.D. 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 B.S. 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 been discovered in regard to cultural competence and racial disparities in society.
