Marlen Gonzalez
Marlen Gonzalez
Assistant Professor
Psychology
Office

T227 Martha Van Rensselaer Hall

Biography

My work takes a behavioral ecology perspective on understanding the reciprocal relationships between environments, brains, and behaviors in humans.  Specifically, my lab, the Life History Lab, looks at how social and physical affordances in development and in the present impact neural sensitivity to rewards and punishment, vigilance, cognitive load, and stress as well positive stimuli like social support and contemplative practices. These sensitivities can encourage certain behaviors and be influenced by them, creating emergent ecologies which can be health promoting or health deteriorating. We use psychophysiology, neuroimaging, molecular, and spatial analysis methodology to answer important questions on the path from environment, to body, to behavior, and ultimately wellbeing and health. 

A large part of my work is also community serving or oriented.  As the executive director of the Community Neuroscience Initiative, I lead a team of fellow neuroscience professors, graduate students, and undergraduate students, in creating community relations, community-facing content, celebrations, and infrastructure for research. 

I describe what I do as “community neuroscience” an interdependent marriage between cutting edge research for tomorrow and community empowering today.  It is my belief that science is strengthened through democratization and that communities benefit in knowing more about the ways the environment impacts the brain an ultimately who we are. 

Research interests

Theory: How does human evolutionary, developmental, and contemporary social interdependence play into brain and heart bioenergetics? 

Measurement: How can we better apply behavioral ecology to psychological science and with what methods and measures? 

Empirical: How do social and physical affordances in the environment, as well as relationship to those environments, mold behavioral and neural strategies in vigilance, reward and punishment sensitivity, stress coping, and social support? 

Application: How can neuroscience better partner with community members to promote better science and community thriving simultaneously? 

 

How does the brain instantiate physical and social nutrients and what does this mean for metabolic disorders?

How does access to economic and social resources in childhood shape adult neural endophenotypes?

What genetic and epigenetic factors moderate environmentally derived neuroplasticity?

How do adult social and motivational endophenotypes predict real-world coping strategies and health outcomes?

How can we improve upon our measures to serve our theoretical and empirical work?

I approach teaching and advising from a student-centered approach inspired by Pedagogy of the Oppressed. My role as an educator is to nurture students interests while scaffolding their development. This attunement to the individual student further makes considerations of diversity and inclusion part of the fabric of teaching and advising instead of an add-on. This means attunement to them as individuals and attunement to them as young scholars within a unique context. I've received very positive feedback from my students who also feel free to co-create the pedagogical experience with me. 

HD 4630: Introduction to functional MRI analysis in human neuroimaging

HD 6635: Introduction to scripting for functional MRI analysis in human neuroimaging

 

Journal Article Refereed

Gonzalez, M. Z., & Rice, M. A. (2024). Behavioural sciences need behavioural ecology. Nature Human Behaviour, 1-3.

Tan, A., Rice, M. A., & Gonzalez, M. Z. (2024). A Pivotal Time and Place: University Place Attachment, Childhood Neighborhood Affordances, and Internalizing Symptoms in Emerging Adulthood. Emerging Adulthood, 21676968241240186.

Merritt, H., Faskowitz, J., Gonzalez, M. Z., & Betzel, R. F. (2024). Stability and variation of brain-behavior correlation patterns across measures of social support. Imaging Neuroscience2, 1-18

Gonzalez, M. Z., Coppola, A. M., Allen, J. P., & Coan, J. A. (2021). In review. Yielding to social presence as a bioenergetic strategy: Preliminary evidence using fMRI. Current research in ecological and social psychology2, 100010.

Gonzalez, M. Z., Wroblewski, K. L., Allen, J. P., Coan, J. A., & Connelly, J. J. (2021). In review. OXTR DNA methylation moderates the developmental calibration of neural reward sensitivity. Developmental psychobiology63(1), 114-124.

Gonzalez, M.Z, Coppolla, A., Allen, J.P., Coan, J.A. (in review). Yielding to social support:Associations with self-regulation in brain and behavior. Social Neuroscience.

Gonzalez, M.Z, Allen, J.P., Coan, J.A, Connelly, J.J. (in review). Developmental Calibration of Adult Neural Reward Sensitivity: The Moderating Role of Oxytocin Receptor GeneMethylation. Developmental Psychobiology.

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS & ORGANIZATIONS

 

International Society for Developmental Psychobiology

Association for Psychological Science

American Psychological Association

Society for a Science of Clinical Psychology

Social Affective Neuroscience Society

Society for Psychophysiological Research

Society for Affective Science

Developmental Affective Neuroscience Symposium

LIFE Program, International Max Planck Research School

 

EDITORIAL EXPERIENCE

 

Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience (ad hoc reviewer since 2014)

Frontiers in Neuroscience (ad hoc reviewer since 2015)

International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine (ad hoc reviewer since 2017)

2018, Clinical Psychology Predoctoral Internship, Charleston Consortium Internship Program, Charleston, SC

2018, Ph.D., Psychology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA

2013, M.A., Psychology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA

2008, B.A., Summa Cum Laude, Psychology, Manhattanville College, Purchase, NY 

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