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I am a professor in the Department of Psychology, director of the Purpose Science and innovation Exchange and co-founder of Purpose Commons. I received my B.A. in Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and my Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Florida International University. I completed my postdoctoral training within the Multicultural Research Institute at the University of Notre Dame.

My research follows two paths. The first investigates why having a sense of self-direction – or purpose

Xinyi is a social and affective neuroscientist in training. She studies how social experiences and reward processes shape mental and brain health across development, using behavioral and neuroimaging approaches.
 

Dr. LeeAnn Roberts is pursuing a Ph.D. in Psychology from Cornell University’s College of Human Ecology. She conducts her research within the Black Girl Visions Collaborative Lab under the leadership of Dr. Misha Ailsworth, Assistant Professor in Cornell University’s Department of Psychology. Her research examines how Black adolescent girls and Black emerging adult women experience and cultivate psychological and emotional safety across educational, professional, relational, and digital environments. She is particularly interested in how relationships

Alani Runnels is currently pursuing a Master of Science in Nutritional Science with a concentration in Dietetics at Cornell University. She is a recent graduate of Oakwood University, where she earned a Bachelor of Science in Dietetics. Her passion for nutrition is rooted in her belief that every person, regardless of their background, should have the opportunity to live a healthy life. Alani is passionate about becoming a registered dietitian and working with communities that

Elisabetta Ferrero (she/her) is a PhD student in Nutrition, working with Dr. Roger Figueroa in the FIG Lab. She holds a Master of Public Health in Nutrition from the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, where she specialized in Global Nutrition. Upon graduating from her masters, she continued working at the Chan School, coordinating numerous studies addressing multiple forms of malnutrition among adolescents in Tanzania, Burkina Faso, and South Africa, particularly through schools

Sadie is a Ph.D. student in Nutrition for Metabolic Health, working with Dr. Meng Wang, and a Graduate School Dean's Scholar. She earned a B.S. in Biological Sciences from Cornell, with a concentration in Genetics, Genomics, and Development. Sadie is broadly interested in the metabolic origins of DNA damage and in what happens when the pathways that protect against it fail. In Dr. Meng Wang's lab, she studies formaldehyde as an endogenous source of DNA