LAB MEMBERS
Dr. Pani Farvid
She/Her/Hers
Scholar, Advocate, Consultant
Lab Founder and Director
Dr. Pani Farvid is an Assistant Professor of Applied Psychology. She joined The New School in 2019 from Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand, where she developed successful teaching and research programs, as well as wide-ranging media profile addressing social and psychological issues (e.g., see her TEDx talk on saying goodbye to binary gender).
Dr. Farvid works with interdisciplinary research teams, community organizations and policy makers across the globe. She draws on mixed-methods, discursive methods, as well as new and emerging methodologies. Her current research/supervision interests span the following:
Working with marginalized populations (e.g., refugees, immigrants, non-binary, LGBTQI+, ethnic/racial minorities) in order to foster equity and social justice.
Dr. Thomas a. Vance
He/Him/His
Visiting Research Scholar/ The New School / Schools for Public Engagement
Dr. Thomas A.Vance is a Visiting Research Scholar at the Schools for Public Engagement at The New School in New York. Clinically, Dr. Vance's work examines the intersection of sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, race/ethnicity, disability, class, and other identities and experiences. Dr. Vance researches, practice, and advocates on the resilience of the transgender and gender non-binary community through social justice and empowerment training related to mental health. Dr. Vance specializes in providing holistic multicultural care to children, adolescents, adults, and families. His clinical practice uses evidence-based therapies and techniques appropriately modified for working cross-culturally with socially, economically, and politically disadvantaged patients.
Media Engagement:
Sedef Ozoguz (PhD) is an Assistant Professor of Psychology in the Schools of Public Engagement at The New School. She completed her doctoral training at the City University of New York and has bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of York and University College London. Her research focuses on freedoms denied and freedoms desired in relation to gender and sexuality in non-Western communities. She has published on sexual and reproductive rights, sex education in the US and the impact of sexual empowerment discourses on immigrating women. She has been rewarded the Dissertation Fellowship and the Art Science Connect Award for her thesis
on the liberation of women in Turkey, recognized for her contribution to both arts and sciences through multidisciplinary research design. Sedef is committed to public scholarship and has been involved in making gender and sexuality research accessible through her work at SexGenLab at Hunter College in New York, as well as through Wild Women of Anatolia, a documentary project about women’s freedom dreams in Turkey.
Dr. Sedef Ozoguz
She/Her/Hers
Assistant Professor in Psychology
DR. Denton Callander
He/Him/His
Researcher, Advocate,
Communicator
Denton Callander, PhD, is a researcher who studies barriers to and ways of improving sexual health and well-being. He is particularly interested in how technologies impact sexual health, facilitate novel forms of sexuality research, and present opportunities for intervention. Denton leads a diverse portfolio of mixed methods and interdisciplinary research in Australasia, North America, and Europe.
Samantha Klein
She/Her/Hers
Student, Researcher, Clinician-in-training
Sam is a second year PhD student in Clinical Psychology at the New School for Social Research. She earned her BA in Psychology with a concentration in Gender & Sexuality studies at Bard College in 2018. In addition to being a part of the SexTech Lab, Sam is also a Research Assistant and a member of the Gender & Health Lab in the Clinical Psychology department. Sam's research interests involve sexual/reproductive health and technologies-- specifically as they relate to women, gender minorities, and the LGBTQ+ community. Her MA thesis was a qualitative study examining patient/provider interactions as participants were deciding on preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy (PGT-A).
Anna King
She/Her/Hers
Student, Leftist, Activist
Anna is a fourth year psychology student at The New School. She hopes to help reshape US public policy surrounding racial and economic justice, mental health, and healthcare. Her interests include racial and gender identity, psychology, and social activism. She’s a producer for the student-ran New School Radio and lives in Portland, Oregon.
Talea McCalman
She/Her/Hers
Student, Photographer, Educator
Talea is a second-year Psychology Masters student and intends to later
pursue her PhD in Clinical Psychology. Growing up in NYC, Talea has always had an interest in mental health in marginalized communities, and racial justice. She is also interested in the impact of
incarceration on the development of mental illnesses, and treatment
outcomes in the LGBTQ+ community. As an undergraduate, Talea got the
chance to work with mentally ill incarcerated individuals. Her
previous research examines the influence of race on juror decision
making. Outside of the NSSR, Talea enjoys photography, baking and
watching movies.
Sophia Mullens
She/Her/Hers
Student, Clinician, Researcher
Sophie Mullens is a second-year doctoral student in Clinical Psychology at the New School for Social Research. She works as a Research Assistant in both The Psychopathology Lab of McWelling Todman and in the SexTech Lab. Research interests include boredom, psychosis, gender bias in clinical judgment, and technologically mediated intimacies.
Luca forcino
They/Them/Theirs
Student, Researcher, Advocate
Luca is a fourth-year psychology student in The New School’s BPATS program. They previously worked as a research assistant in TNS’s Cultural Psychology Lab, studying how children from different cultural backgrounds regulate their emotions. Luca’s research interests center around gender and sexual identity, with a specific focus on the experiences of LGBTQ+ adolescents. In the future, Luca hopes to pursue graduate study in the field of social work.
Brian Clement
He/Him/His
Student, Counselor, Writer
Brian Clement is an undergraduate psychology student at the New School. His interests include gender and sexual identity, personality, and racial disparities in mental health care. At the Mental Health Association of San Francisco he counsels peers in recovery, helping them tell their own stories. He is inspired by psychoanalytic theory and plans to pursue graduate study.
Kay Nikiforova
They/Them/Theirs
Researcher, Student, Advocate
Kay Nikiforova is a Clinical Psychology PhD student at St. John's University, a mental health advocate and serves as an advisor for startups and organizations within the mental health and healthtech space. Their clinical and research interests span trauma, the GSM (Gender and Sexuality Minority) population, alternative sexuality and spiritual practices, we well as mental health literacy.
Tyce Franshon Purvis
He/Him/His
Student, Artist, Advocate
Tyce is a doctoral student of Clinical Psychology at the New School for Social Research. He intends to work with BIPOC and Queer folks as he continues on throughout his academic and clinical career. Tyce is passionate about improving the experiences of all Black people in academia, and as they navigate mental health services. At the moment he has been exploring the presence of anti-blackness in the therapeutic space as enacted by White psychotherapists. Tyce's future research intends to address the impact of paternal absence across the lifespan for young boys, as well as the ways in which communities come together to address this issue. He hopes to work with Black families, youth, and couples as he continues on in his clinical training in order to provide a space of empowerment for members of his community.
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Eridani is a Kāi Tahu Māori student of psychotherapy student at AUT in Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand. She is passionate about decolonisation and is particularly focused on decolonising university curriculum and pedagogy, mental health and sexuality.
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Eridani Baker
She/Her
Student, Takatāpui, De-coloniser
Abigail Whitmer
She/Her/Hers
Student, Advocate, Researcher
Abigail is a third-year undergraduate student at The New School studying psychology and political science with a focus on clinical psychology and psychology of gender and sexuality. She has a passion for the importance of mental health, freedom of sexuality, and equality in gender; as well as interests in resisting the hegemonic subjugation of these topics.
Maso mazzaferro
Student, Researcher, Aspiring Clinician
Maso is a first-year Masters student in the New School for Social Research's Psychology M.A. program, with plans to eventually become a Clinical Psychologist. Maso is very interested in advancing treatment methods of trauma-induced psychopathology, especially in groups commonly experiencing discrimination-based trauma such as the LGBTQIA+ community. Another interest is furthering research that may decrease LGBT discrimination in society, especially through allowing people to tell their personal stories.
Max is an MA student in Psychology at The New School. Their areas of interest include Sexuality and Gender, Trauma, Death, Kink, Sex Work, Alternative Kinship, Critical Race Theory.
MAX
TAMOLA
They/Them/Theirs
Sarah is an aspiring clinician, and Psychology Masters student at the New School for Social Research. She earned her BA in sexuality, gender, and feminist studies from Oberlin College in 2015. She has a background in editorial writing, film and theater production, and peer-based, non-clinical therapeutics. Her research interests are wide, varied, and evolving, but are underpinned by justice, liberation, radical futurisms, and the body.
Sarah Epstein
She/Her/Hers
Ciela Chavez-Gilbride is a recent Bachelor's graduate from the Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts. They will be completing their Masters in Psychology at the New School for Social Research in the Spring of 2023. Their undergraduate studies focused on the psychology and literature of gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity. They are interested in the relationship between intersectional identities and their narratives, both personal and societal. They will continue this vein of interest in their graduate studies where they hope to examine psychology through a social justice lens.
Ciela Chavez-Gilbride
They/Them/Theirs
Student, Researcher, Advocate
LAB Alumni
Xabier Peralta
Isabel Minogue
Felix
gabriel
Laura ovcjak
Elizabeth Owens
tess george
Faith Nwando
Lydia Caldana
Gabriella Ibrahim
Hannah Song
Sally McHugh
Dr. Rezwana Snigdha
Dr. Rezwana Snigdha
Dr. Tara Pond
Tanja Glucina
Dr. Luke Sniewski
Sara Obaid UI Islam
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Thyme Canton
Lindsey Johnson
Vanessa Scott
Mianzhui (Briana) Wang
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Derek Scolpino
Leigh Lumpkin
Isabel Glusman
Sanjana Pegu
Maryam Omidi
Sonora Goldman
Aaron Smith
Michelle King
Radhika Rajkumar
Eva Hersch
Ivol Frasier
Sohini Chaterjee
Pritika Lal
Maria Lopez
I'm a first-year Master's student in General Psychology with an interest in social and applied psychology. I hope to pursue the CSD doctoral program after graduation. My research interests are in LGBTQ+ liberation, social media's role in the exploration and radicalization of sexual and gender identity, classism, fatphobia, and feminism. Before the New School, I received my BA in Psychology and Gender & Women's Studies at Saint Mary's College with a senior capstone research project in the policy, protections, and experiences for LGBTQ+ students on Catholic, Protestant, and secular university campuses inspired by a personal experience of discrimination on a Catholic campus.