People
Our research is driven by the passion of those whoe conduct it. This is our team:
Liat Helpman, PhD Principal Investigator
Dr. Helpman is an educational and clinical psychologist, trained in both Israel and the USA. Her research focuses on individual differences in stress response, posttraumatic reactions, and the assessment and treatment of trauma-related disorders. She is passionate about employing a bio-psycho-social prism to the investigation of stress responses and related psychopathologies, with the aim of contributing to the tailoring of developmentally- and gender-informed assessment, prevention and intervention programs.
Stav Cohen, Graduate Student
Stav is an MA student in the Group Dynamics program.
She holds a B.A. in education and her MA thesis at the STAGS lab examines the gendered experience of women in transition to motherhood.
Safaa Massarwa, MA Graduate Student
Safaa is a Special Education teacher, Didactic, and MOXO diagnostics specialist, and an MA student in the Counseling and Human Development Program at the University of Haifa. At the lab, she is working on her thesis research titled "The effect of estrogen levels on executive functions in women with trauma exposure history". She holds a BA in Special Education from Beit Berl College and an MA in Diagnosing and Treating Learning Disabilities from the University of Haifa, and committed to understanding of individual differences in executive function.
Tal Malka, BA Graduate Student
Tal is an MA student in clinical-rehabilitation neuropsychology. Her thesis, in the lab, focuses on the relationship between sex steroid hormones and emotion regulation circuitry function among women with a history of childhood sexual trauma. conducts clinical assessments in the lab. She holds a B.A. in Psychology and Brain & Cognitive Sciences from Ben Gurion University in the Negev.
Manal Abu Naser, BA Graduate Student
Manal is an MA student in education. Her thesis, in the lab, focuses on the relationship between sex steroid hormones and fear overgeneralization among women with a history of trauma.
Michal Tevet, MA PhD student
Michal is a medical psychology resident, holds a BA from the Open University and an MA from Tel Aviv Yafo Academic College. Her research focuses on gendered aspects of motherhood stress, examining the role of indivdual, relational aand sociatal factors in maternal adjustment.
Heba Halabi Aburuken, MA
PhD Student
Heba is an educational counsellor, who completed her MA thesis on. She has joined the lab, merging her knowledge of work with children and parent in educational settings with the lab's focus on neuroscience informed women's mental health. Her doctoral work examines The Impact of Trauma Exposure on Mothers' Parental Brain Functioning, Emotional Regulation, Parental Stress, and the subsequent influence on their Child's Learning Strategies. Heba's work is co-supervised by Prof. Adar Ben Eliyahu.
Moria Mazal Tadela, MA
PhD Student
Moria holds an MA in group counseling, her thesis focusing on intergenerational trauma among children of survivors of emigration journeys from Ethiopia to Israel via Sudan. Her doctoral project, a mixed-methods study titled "Gender, sexuality, and immigration: Intergenerational effects of sexual trauma on second generation women of Ethiopian heritage born in Israel and the role of gender as a risk and resilience factor.
" broaches sensitive and understudied topics. This project is co-mentored by Dr. Shelly Engdau.
Anat Rotem, MA Graduate Student
Anat is a school counselor and an instructor for schools in the field of sexuality, including the subjects of LGBT+ students and sexual safety.
She holds a B.A. in Behavioral Sciences (Psychology, Sociology & Anthropology) from Ben- Gurion University of the Negev, and an M.A. in Educational Counseling from Tel-Aviv University.
As a PhD student in the Counseling and Human Development Program, her study at the STAGS lab examines the attitudes of Israeli adolescents and school counselors regarding gender diverse identity, pressure for gender conformity, and the relationships between these attitudes.
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