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Lab Faculty

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Dr. Ryan Carpenter

Assistant Professor, Psychology
Primary Area: Clinical

Dr. Carpenter's research focuses on substance use and how substance use disorder manifests in the natural environment. He uses ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to study substance use and co-use amongst people who both are and are not experiencing use-related problems. Much of his work has focused on alcohol, opioid, and cannabis use and co-use, but he is also interested in the use of other substances. His work also examines the effectiveness and feasibility of mobile health (mHealth) interventions to address and prevent substance use in daily life. A second and related focus of Dr. Carpenter’s research is applying models of negative reinforcement to shed light on the processes through which aversive internal experiences (e.g., negative affect, physical pain) lead some individuals to use substances or engage in self-destructive behaviors, such as non-suicidal self-injury.

Read Dr. Carpenter's Published Articles

Graduate Students

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Ian McNamara

Graduate Student

Ian's research explores the intersection of negative reinforcement models of alcohol use with personality factors. He hopes to better explain long-term trajectories of risk through the examination of patterns of behavior during individual's daily lives.

Read Ian McNamara's publications

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Khrystyna Stetsiv

Graduate Student

Khrystyna’s research examines suicide, emotion dysregulation, and substance use, including how these processes are interrelated. In particular, Khrystyna is interested in utilizing ecological momentary assessment to study these processes in daily life.

Read Khrystyna Stetsiv's publications

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Jake Sauer

Graduate Student

Jake is generally interested in investigating alcohol and substance use antecedents and consequences in the natural environment using ambulatory assessment. Additionally, he is interested in methodology research regarding ambulatory assessment.

Read Jake Sauer's publications

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Melissa Nance

Graduate Student

Melissa is broadly interested in studying emotional processes and how they relate to health-risk behaviors, particularly alcohol/substance use and non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI). In order to prevent alcohol-related harms, she aims to conduct research on antecedents to alcohol use and alcohol use consequences. Melissa is particularly interested in conducting research using ecological momentary assessment (EMA) methods to examine emotions and behaviors as they occur in daily life to gather information that can be used to develop just-in-time interventions when they are most needed.

Read Melissa Nance's publications

Lab Staff

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Beth Arnold

Lab Coordinator

Beth is the Lab coordinator for the SPIEL Lab. She spent over six years doing clinical work before beginning her current role. She has a Masters in Psychology and hopes to someday get her PhD in Clinical Psychology.