Alumni

Ashley Batastini

Ashley Batastini attended Drexel's M.S. program from 2008-2010, and worked with Drs. Kirk Heilbrun and David DeMatteo. Her primary research interests are broadly in the field of forensic and correctional psychology, and specifically in offender rehabilitation, risk assessment, and juvenile justice. At Drexel, she worked on several projects, including a study investigating the impact of sex offender registration laws on juvenile delinquents and my thesis project, which compared recidivism rates of jailed inmates participating in a cognitive skills intervention. She is currently a Counseling Psychology Ph.D. student at Texas Tech University, where she is continuing her work in forensic mental health. Her dissertation project focuses on the use of videoconferencing technologies (i.e., telemedicine) in delivering psychological services to inmates across a distance. Please feel free to contact her at Ashley.Batastini@ttu.edu if you have any questions regarding her experiences at Drexel or the graduate school application process in general.

Jade Dinh

Jade Dinh completed her final year as an undergraduate at Drexel in 2012, completing an honors thesis in the process of earning the B.S. in Psychology with a minor in criminal justice. Her future plans include pursuing graduate school in a clinical and forensic psychology program, with the ultimate professional goal of working with juvenile delinquents in a clinical setting. Jade completed her last co-op at the Office of Research and Evaluation for the Philadelphia School District in which she drafted evaluation plans for the comprehensive Nutrition and Wellness Buddies Program, evaluated programs executed within the Philadelphia School District, and conducted school visits and ran focus groups to determine efficacy and fidelity of such programs. On the side, Jade has been volunteering at the Philadelphia Ronald McDonald House for the past 3 years and currently works part-time at GAP Inc. Jade's other interests include attending concerts, cooking, traveling, and leisurely reading.

Danielle Hamilton

Dani graduated from the M.S. program in psychology at Drexel in 2012. She received her B.S. in Criminal Justice and Psychology at Sam Houston State University in 2008, and her M.S. in Criminal Justice and Forensic Psychology from the University of New Haven in 2010. Before Drexel, she worked at the Sierra Pre-trial Center and Re-interview Center where she conducted group therapy with substance dependent, HIV positive offenders with co-occurring Axis 1 diagnoses and antisocial personality disorder. Her current research interests include psychopathy, psychopathy in women, neuropsychological and forensic assessments of psychopaths and sex offenders, sex offender treatment and policy, and education and prevention of sexual violence. Dani's outside interests include traveling, Monday Night Football, playing soccer, and dancing.

Email: dh532@drexel.edu Vita (PDF)

Lindsay Haston

Lindsay will complete her undergraduate studies at Drexel in 2012 with a major in psychology, having completed an honors thesis. In her time at Drexel she worked extensively at the University of Pennsylvania Center for Studies of Addiction on research projects centered around employment intervention for offenders and relapse prevention for opioid addiction using depot Naltrexone. She also interned with the Clinical Evaluation Unit of Family Court in Philadelphia as well as Juvenile Treatment Court. Lindsay is looking forward to continuing her education in both law and psychology following her graduation in December of 2012. Her outside interests include Philadelphia sports, travel and spending time with her family.

Allison Hill

Allison Hill graduated from the J.D./Ph.D. program and is currently on postdoctoral fellowship at Emory School of Medicine/Grady Health System. Allison is originally from Clearwater, FL. Allison earned a B.S. in Psychology from Duke University and a M.S. from Columbia University before moving to Philadelphia to begin the J.D./Ph.D. program. Allison's research interests include risk assessment, forensic assessment, and juvenile justice issues. Allison's thesis and dissertation research involves a resiliency-based approach and evaluates an afterschool sports mentoring program for at-risk youth. Allison currently lives in Atlanta with her husband, Ben, and recently passed the Georgia Bar Exam.

Vita (PDF)

Heath Hodges

Heath Hodges received his B.A. in Psychology from the University of Arkansas in 2004 and his M.S. in Psychology from Drexel University in 2007. While at Drexel, his interests included violence risk assessment, psychopathy, and the role of severe mental illness in violent offending. He successfully defended and published his master’s thesis on the role of psychopathic traits in the prediction of instrumentally motivated violence that had been perpetrated by psychiatric patients living in the community. From 2007 to 2011, he assisted in clinical research for the Aaron T. Beck Psychopathology Research Center at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA. He is currently a clinical PhD/MLS student in the Forensic Psychology Training Program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He also performs psychological evaluations and mental health appraisals for a maximum-security intake facility for the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services. His current research focuses on the effectiveness of sex offender treatment programs, psychopathic personality disorder, and the impact of the law as a healing agent (i.e., therapeutic jurisprudence). He can be contacted at Heath.Hodges@gmail.com.

Tracy Fass McKnerney

While at Drexel, my research interests included violence risk assessment, juvenile delinquency, and sentencing policy. My goal was to pursue a career in academia. I am currently the Program Director of the Los Angeles and Irvine campuses of the California School of Forensic Studies at Alliant International University. I am also an Assistant Professor on the Los Angeles campus. I teach courses in psychopathology, statistics, and research methods, supervise student dissertations, and engage in various administrative activities. I also serve as a methodologist for a number of research projects on the Los Angeles campus. My current research activities focus on issues in juvenile sentencing policy, juvenile delinquency, violence risk assessment (specifically assessment instruments), program evaluation in correctional settings, and juvenile neuropsychology. In addition, I currently serve on the American Psychology-Law Society (AP-LS) Mentorship Committee and I have been involved in creating a mobile app for AP-LS. I previously served on the AP-LS Dissertation Awards Committee. I would be happy to speak with potential applicants to Drexel. My email address is tfass@alliant.edu.

Michele Pich

Michele graduated from the MS program in 2012, having completed her B.S. in Psychology from Drexel in 2005. She is currently in the second year of a doctoral program in criminal justice at Temple University. Michele’s interests in forensic psychology include  (1) competence for execution, (2) forensic assessment, (3) substance abuse treatment within the criminal justice system, and (4) animal assisted therapy in the offender and terminally ill populations. She is interested in policy reform by means of empirical research. Michele is also the Veterinary Grief Counselor at the Matthew J. Ryan Veterinary Hospital at the University of Pennsylvania.

Email: mpich@vet.upenn.edu

Kento Yasuhara

Kento graduated from the Ph.D. Program in 2012 and is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Law, Psychiatry, and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. Although he's spent most of his life in the U.S., he is originally from Tokyo, Japan. Kento graduated with a B.A. in Psychology from Cornell University and completed his clinical internship at Patton State Hospital in California. Kento's primary research interests are violence risk assessment,- specifically violence risk factors and violence risk assessment tools. Additional research interests include public policy, specialty courts, and institutional violence risk. His future plans involve working with the mentally ill involved in the criminal justice system and doing research in the field of law and psychology, specifically in violence risk. Kento also loves to play soccer, cook, and enjoy a good bottle of wine.

Email: kento.yasuhara@drexel.edu Vita (PDF)