Cindy An, ADNiR Scholar and Stamps Eminence Scholar, has added one more distinction: Goldwater Scholar. The Barry Goldwater Scholarship is the most prestigious undergraduate scholarship in the natural sciences, mathematics, and engineering in America. Cindy is one of eight students selected for the field of psychology. She proposes to investigate the neural mechanisms of suicidality, self-harm, and affective symptoms in psychotic disorders and use neuroimaging methods to inform interventions.
Cindy is an ADNiR Scholar in the MEND2 (Multifaceted Explorations of the Neurobiology of Depressive Disorders) lab and is mentored by Dr. Mindy Westlund Schreiner. Cindy has had an amazingly productive first year. In addition to being named a Goldwater Scholar, she presented a poster at the Society of Biological Psychiatry 2026 Annual Meeting in New York City and had her first paper accepted for publication.
Congratulations Cindy! We can't wait to see what you accomplish next.
Tell us about your project in the MEND2 lab:
I am analyzing how rumination differs neurally in adolescents with non-suicidal self-injury compared to adolescents without. I am also working on setting up preprocessing pipelines and analyses for Mindy's newer ongoing studies.
My thesis is a collaboration between Dr. Mindy Westlund Schreiner, Dr. Jessica Turner, and Dr. Aubrey Moe. The aim is to assess how reward and emotion regulation networks relate to non-suicidal self-injury in early psychosis. Mindy provides expertise in self-injury, Jess provides expertise in psychosis and neuroimaging techniques, and Aubrey provides expertise in early psychosis. Studies commonly explore non-suicidal self-injury in mood, anxiety, and personality disorders but very few assess this in people with psychosis, despite them having extremely high rates of self-injury.