Dr. Nicole H. Weiss is a Professor of Psychology and Director of the STRESS Lab (Department of Psychology, College of Health Sciences). She is widely recognized for cultivating a rigorous, collaborative, and highly supportive training environment that prioritizes both scientific excellence and trainee development.

Since 2017, her graduate mentees have co-authored over 150 of her publications, serving as first authors on more than 65, and have led numerous competitive grant submissions, including six NIH F31 awards. Her graduate mentees have received numerous prestigious honors and have advanced to leading research and academic positions, including appointments at institutions such as Yale University. Dr. Weiss integrates research excellence with a strong commitment to justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI) in mentoring. She promotes culturally responsive research and training while preparing graduate mentees to work effectively and compassionately with systemically excluded and marginalized populations.

Her mentorship has been formally recognized through her selection to the URI Graduate School Graduate Mentoring Committee and national awards, including the Outstanding Mentorship Award from the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies and the Nancy Petry Mid-Career Award from APA Division 50 (Society of Addiction Psychology).

Anna Cetera is a graduate student in the Department of Electrical, Computer, and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Rhode Island, where she is completing her Master of Science in Electrical Engineering. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering and Bachelor of Arts in Spanish through URI’s International Engineering Program, which integrates engineering education with global and cross-cultural experience.

As part of the Translational Neurorobotics Laboratory, her master’s thesis focuses on developing noninvasive brain-computer interface systems to decode brain activity during visuomotor tasks. Under the guidance of her research advisor, Dr. Reza Abiri, her work aims to characterize the neural mechanisms underlying upper-limb movements using noninvasive brain signals, with a focus on how the brain coordinates, encodes, and executes motor processes. By integrating innovative experimental platforms with advanced signal processing and deep learning techniques, she identifies frequency-specific brain patterns associated with different hand movements and motor intentions.

Anna’s research advances the development of clinically accessible brain-machine interfaces and contributes to neuroprosthetic technologies designed to restore hand function and improve independence for individuals with paralysis. Her work bridges neuroscience, engineering, and data-driven modeling to support the next generation of assistive neurotechnology.

Dr. Juliana Agudelo Areiza (Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences,
College of Pharmacy) earned her Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences at URI, specializing in Pharmacology and Toxicology. Her research examines how PFAS, persistent environmental toxicants, accumulate in tissues, disrupt protein homeostasis, and contribute to adverse health outcomes. Her work includes studies on neonatal neurotoxicity following maternal PFAS exposure, trends in PFAS accumulation across human liver samples, and paired liver-serum analyses exploring individual variability.

She led a major study quantifying PFAS in human livers collected across the United States from 2000 to 2024, identifying declining legacy compounds alongside rising emerging PFAS and highlighting the roles of age, sex, and liver disease.

Juliana has also developed innovative laboratory methods and computational tools for large-scale data analysis. As a postdoctoral fellow at URI, she serves as laboratory manager and scientific lead, directing PFAS research across human, rodent, and fish models.