Bio coming soon.

Hannah is currently a senior at the University of North Georgia, graduating in spring 2025. She is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in psychology with a minor in organizational leadership. Hannah also has professional experience in psychology interning at the care and counseling department of Gwinnett Church from 2021-2023. In 2023, Hannah was inducted into Psi Chi, the international honors society in psychology. She continues to be an active member, participating in their meetings and events. Her psychology interests focus on psychopharmacology, physiology, and cognition. Her fascination with psychological science increased while taking a biopsychology course in the summer of 2024. Immediately afterward, Hannah joined the Hale Vision Lab. Since then, she has been introduced to the world of research including how to collect data with human participants, vision testing, using experimental software, and more. Alongside another research assistant in the HVL, Hannah has started on a research project related to a visual phenomenon known as the watercolor illusion. After graduation, Hannah plans to seek a career in mental health, focusing on treating mental illness and cognitive impairment. To achieve this goal, she plans to attend graduate school, earning a Master’s degree or Ph.D. in clinical/counseling psychology. Hannah’s research experiences as part of the HVL will support her aims and ensure she is ready for her graduate program and beyond.

Danica graduated in May 2024 from the University of North Georgia with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a minor in criminal justice. She has a diverse research background, collaborating with various faculty members in the UNG psychology department. Notably, her collaboration with Dr. Hale has involved several projects, including the oversight of an experiment aimed at simplifying and replicating the cognitive context effect's impact on facial emotion perception. The results were outlined in a manuscript co-authored with Dr. Hale, published to the Psi Chi Journal of Psychological Research. Click here to read that manuscript. Concurrently, Danica has submitted her translational literature review for publication alongside Dr. Hale. This manuscript explores the neural mechanisms involved in the use of a computer-based cognitive rehabilitation program aimed at enhancing reaction time to synchronous stimuli through biofeedback and targets the functional neural pathways of predictive coding to improve cognitive performance. This manuscript serves as a theoretical framework to advocate for the use of this biotechnology in substance use disorder rehabilitation. In addition to this, she has conducted other research projects on visual motion perception and visual short-term memory, building upon her research experience in perceptual and cognitive processes. Danica has presented her research at prominent conferences, including the Vision Sciences Society (VSS) and the UNG Annual Research Conference. Currently, she is immersed in a research project that investigates non-rigid motion perception using a novel visual paradigm, incorporating multisensory stimuli . This work holds the potential to advance our understanding of multi-sensory processing and the perception of complex motion patterns. She plans to present the findings of this project at VSS 2025. Her academic interests lie predominantly in cognitive neuroscience, with a focus on perception and temporal processing. Danica's long-term goal is to pursue a Ph.D., serve as a postdoctoral fellow, and ultimately establish herself as a researcher specializing in neuroimaging studies.

Courtney is currently a senior at the University of North Georgia. She is working towards a psychology degree with a minor in sociology. Her research interests are focused on social and clinical psychology. She plans to use her experience with cognitive psychology to discover how attention, perception, and memory may affect intimate relationships. Courtney began working in the Hale Vision Lab during the summer of 2022. During her first year, Courtney completed a collaborative multi-experiment project studying a surface completion and color spreading illusion known as the watercolor illusion. This project was submitted to a high impact journal for publication and is under review. This project was also presented in a poster session by Courtney and a fellow research assistant at the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), an international visual perception conference, in the spring of 2023. During the summer of 2023, Courtney was hired as a paid research assistant through UNG’s eight-week-long Faculty Undergraduate Summer Experience (FUSE) program. She worked together with Dr. Hale and a fellow research assistant to design a research project, recruit participants, collect data, clean and analyze data, and present the developments through four separate presentations. This project utilized advanced virtual reality equipment to create a controlled “real-world” environment to study visual long-term memory capabilities and limitations. Research from this project will be submitted to a high impact journal for publication and be presented at research conferences in the coming academic year. She also collaborated with Dr. Hale and a fellow UNG student on a project involving the relationship between the Birthday Number Effect and self-esteem that was published in the Psi Chi Journal of Psychological Research in Summer, 2024. Click here to read that peer-reviewed journal article. Courtney is an active member of the student conduct & integrity committee and is the president of the Psi Chi Honors Society for the 2023-2024 school year. After graduation, Courtney plans to enroll in a graduate program that will allow her to research ways in which sexual education affects STI exposure, pregnancy, and risky sexual behavior in a youth population.

Jonathan Kyle Kroeger graduated from the University of North Georgia, majoring in Psychology with a minor in Business Administration. After graduation, Kyle plans on going to graduate school in pursuit of a Ph.D. in behavioral psychology. He is interested in studying mental disorders and drug addiction from a behavioral perspective. Additionally, Kyle is interested in sensory perception, reaching for a further understanding of the “shortcuts” the brain uses to reduce incoming stimuli into the conscious mind. In the future he hopes to study how perception might be affected by various mental disorders and how that might be used to better identify them earlier. In Fall 2020, Kyle presented a poster examining the connection between motion aftereffects and boundary extension at the Georgia Undergraduate Research Conference (GURC), a study undertaken by the Hale Vision Lab. He then went on to present a poster at the Vision Sciences Society (VSS) in 2021 focused on the effects of luminance and surface area on figure-ground organization. Now with more than a year of research experience, he plans to further assist Dr. Hale with ongoing research related to the watercolor illusion and its impact on figure-ground organization in various global contexts. This research is likely to improve our understanding of visual surface completion and perceptual organization. He conducted research on social gaze in the fall of 2021. Together with another lab student, Erin Conway, he published this manuscript in the Psi Chi Journal of Psychological Research. Click here to read that peer reviewed journal article. 

When working in the HVL, Alexandra Negru was a freshman at the University of North Georgia who, majoring in psychology and minoring in philosophy. Alongside Dr. Hale, she was currently working on her first research project that aims to explore an association between music and cognitive abilities such as memory retention. As a student of the University of North Georgia’s Honors Program, she plans share her findings at various research conferences in the southeast. By executing and presenting this research, she hopes to encourage awareness of scientifically supported methods of enhancing cognitive facilitation. Alexandra also intends to find more efficient ways for future students to study through her research in this area. Alexandra’s long term goal is to attend Harvard Law School and pursue a career as an attorney. She plans to use her psychology knowledge in law school and beyond in the hopes of better understanding the needs of her clients.

Erica is a graduated psychology major and computer science minor pursuing a doctorate in clinical psychology with a specialty in substance use disorder. As part of the McNair Scholars program, she completed a research project titled "Lexical harm reduction: Language perpetuates stigma related to substance use disorder" which investigated the types of judgments elicited by clinical and colloquial language related to substance use disorder. Her broader research interest is psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, and she plans to complete her graduate research on the potential role of ibogaine as a clinical intervention for substance use disorder. She is the director of the Georgia chapter of Dancesafe, a nonprofit public health organization that provides harm reduction services at music festivals and other events. She is also a long-time student leader for UNG's Students for Sensible Drug Policy chapter, a board member of Peachtree NORML, and a volunteer for the Zendo Project and the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. Erica's interest in perception stems from the insights this field may provide into the processes involved in perceptual distortion during psychedelic experiences. She is particularly interested in synesthesia, the blending of sensory modalities often reported during acute drug effects of psychedelics.