Current Members
Junxuan Zhao
PhD Student
Junxuan is a PhD student at the Centre for Youth Mental Health at the University of Melbourne. She graduated from the University of Melbourne in 2022 with a BSc in Psychology and in 2024 with an MBiomedSc. Her research focuses on the relationship between parenting and brain development in adolescents, particularly how parenting influences adolescent emotion regulation. She is especially interested in the underlying mechanisms linking parental behaviours to emotion regulation ability in children and adolescents.
Muskan Khetan
Postdoctoral Fellow
Muskan's research focuses on how both long-term and short-term fluctuations in pubertal hormones, particularly oestradiol (E2) and progesterone, influence neurobiological mechanisms involved in emotional regulation in adolescent females, thereby increasing their risk for mental health issues.
Li Liu (Leah)
Phd Student
Leah is a PhD student at Central South University, China, currently undertaking a visiting research placement at the University of Melbourne under the supervision of Professor Sarah Whittle. Her doctoral research focuses on the associations between perinatal depression and infant neurodevelopment, including the exploration of potential underlying biological mechanisms, with a particular interest in the role of human milk composition.
Dhatsayini Rattambige
Postdoctoral Fellow (ACU)
Shayini's research is in the field of Neuroscience and Addiction, focusing on the long-term neurodevelopmental impacts of childhood adversities and early alcohol exposure on youth brain development. Her research draws on data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study and the Australian Child Maltreatment Study.
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Stephanie Hartanto
PhD Student
Stephanie is a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne. Her research examines the relationship between childhood adversity and brain development, with a particular focus on sensitive periods—developmental windows of heightened vulnerability to adversity. In her PhD, she investigates how the timing of adversity, considering both chronological age and pubertal development, influences structural and functional brain changes, with implications for mental health and broader functional outcomes.
Jia Teo
Clinical MA/PhD Student (UNSW)
Jia is interested in understanding how early life experiences can influence our emotion regulation later in life. Her PhD research focuses on the effects of childhood maltreatment on fear regulation in adolescents, including the risk and protective factors that may moderate the effects of adverse childhood experiences. She is supervised by Professor Rick Richardson (UNSW), Professor Sarah Whittle (University of Melbourne), and Dr Kathryn Baker (LaTrobe University).
Sylvia Lin
Postdoctoral Fellow
Sylvia is interested in understanding how environmental factors influence child and adolescent brain development, and how brain mechanisms may contribute to behavioural and socioemotional functioning. Her research leverages randomised controlled trial design and fMRI techniques to investigate whether supportive parenting can foster healthy emotion regulation neural function and, in turn, improve mental health outcomes in early adolescents. By bridging neuroscience and clinical practice, she aims to advance the development of evidence-based, neuroscience-informed interventions that promote better mental health outcomes for young people.
Anastasia Paloubis
Clinical Masters student
Senara Perera
Clinical Masters Student
