CARES Lab Members

Minwoo joined the CARES Lab at Georgetown University in summer 2025 as a postdoctoral scholar. As a biological anthropologist and neuroscientist by training, he uses neuroimaging and behavioral methods to study the mechanisms of human caregiving and prosocial behavior, with a particular focus on how providing care and support may promote health, well-being, and brain function. More broadly, his research asks how insights from behavioral and cognitive science can be leveraged to promote durable cycles of prosociality, in which caring for others becomes less personally costly and more rewarding. He is also an NIH T32 Postdoctoral Fellow in Georgetown’s Aging & Alzheimer’s Research Training (AART) Program. Outside the lab, he enjoys hiking, cooking, and playing the piano. Let's connect more at: https://www.minwoodaniellee.com/

Anne Margit is a postdoctoral researcher in the CARES Lab with a PhD in Developmental Psychology from the University of Groningen. She studies emotion dynamics - the patterns and fluctuations in how people experience emotions over time - and how this relates to resilience and well-being. Before joining the lab, she worked at Utrecht University examining how pubertal changes affect interoceptive sensitivity and emotional granularity in adolescents. Her current work investigates how these processes play out between romantic partners. She uses daily experience sampling, natural language analysis, and physiological measures to capture these patterns in real time.

Annika graduated from William & Mary in 2022 with a B.S. in Psychology and in Kinesiology & Health Sciences. Before joining the CARES lab, she worked in the W&M Autism Lab and as a lab manager for the Cognitive Aging and Memory and Integrative Cognitive Neuroscience labs at Tufts University. As a graduate student on the LCN track, her research interests center around the impact that emotion and interoceptive processes have on social relationships and health, as well as methods to improve socio-emotional functioning across the lifespan.

Matt graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park, in 2020 with a B.S. in Biological Sciences (General Biology) and a minor in Neuroscience. Before starting as an LCN student, he worked in the Developmental Social Cognitive Neuroscience Lab at UMD as an undergrad RA and as a postbac, the Magnetic Resonance Physics of Aging and Dementia Unit at the National Institute on Aging as a postbac, and the Lab for Neurodevelopment of Reading and Language at UMD as a project manager. He is interested in the neuroscience surrounding interpersonal relationships, empathy, and interactions in naturalistic contexts. 

Carina graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2024 with dual degrees in Psychology and Data Science. As an undergraduate, she worked as an RA in the Computational Psychiatry and Affective Cognitive Neuroscience Lab and conducted her honors thesis in the Emotion and Emotion Regulation Lab, where she examined ethnic variation in emotion judgments and how they relate to psychological health. After graduating, she worked as a Research Study Coordinator/Lab Manager in the Memory Research Lab at the University of Chicago, where she investigated how mental health and socioemotional factors relate to metacognitive self-assessment, beyond objective cognitive performance in older adults. Carina is excited to continue exploring how social and emotional processes influence cognitive aging as an LCN student in the CARES Lab.

Sara graduated from Pomona College in 2025 with a major in Psychological Science and minors in French and Gender & Women’s Studies. She worked as a research assistant from her first year in the Pomona Personality, Psychopathology, and Relationships (PPPR) Lab, and completed her senior thesis with distinction in the Mechanisms of Interpersonal Communication (MIC) Lab. She is interested in how bodily signals shape socio-emotional experience and mental health, specifically how neural and physiological systems relate to differences in interoceptive sensibility and contribute to clinical outcomes and social (dis/)connection. Being new to DC, you can find Sara hiking and biking the city’s beautiful trails :)

Rachael Romano (she/her) graduated from Barnard College in May 2026 with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. As an undergraduate, she worked as a research assistant in the Social Interaction Lab and completed an honors senior thesis examining the relationship between physiological synchrony and disclosure in cross-cultural pairs. Her research interests center on the physiological correlates of emotional experiences and how these experiences shape relationships over time. Outside of the lab, you can find Rachael going on long walks and listening to music, taking a dance class, or reading.