Principal Investigator
Dan P. McAdams, PhD
Dan P. McAdams is the Henry Wade Rogers Professor of Psychology and Professor of Human Development and Social Policy at Northwestern University. Professor McAdams received his BS degree from Valparaiso University in 1976 and his PhD in psychology and social relations from Harvard University in 1979.
Honored as a Charles Deering McCormick Professor of Teaching Excellence at Northwestern, Professor McAdams teaches courses in Personality Psychology, Adult Development and Aging, Theories of Human Development, the Psychology of Life Stories, and other topics.
Graduate Students
Sarah Jennings
Sarah Jennings is a doctoral student in the Personality, Development, and Health Psychology program at Northwestern University. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Haverford College, where she spent several years working with Dr. Jennifer P. Lilgendahl on the Identity Pathways Project. Sarah’s research focuses on how the construction of evolving life stories is informed by stages of development across the lifespan, personality traits, and characteristic adaptations, how intersectional social identities and cultural and structural forces shape narrative identity, and how autobiographical storytelling may support growth, well-being, and a sense of a meaningful life.
Ananya Mayukha
Ananya Mayukha is a doctoral candidate in Clinical Psychology at Northwestern University. She received her bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Neuroscience at Williams College. Ananya traces her interest in life stories back to a high school philosophy class, which centered around the question, “Who am I?” This question has guided her work, which includes a one-year travel fellowship that allowed her to study human connection around the world and two years at a nonprofit in her hometown, where she facilitated spaces for reflection and healing centered around racial justice. Her research interests lie at the intersection of race, spirituality, and the question of what it means to be alive.
Şebnem Türe
Şebnem Türe is a doctoral candidate in the Personality, Development, and Health program at Northwestern University. She received her bachelor’s degree in Psychology with a minor in Communication and Design from Bilkent University, Turkey. Her research centers on understanding how personal life stories are influenced by individual differences, cultural context, and history, and how autobiographical reasoning might relate to psychological and physical health outcomes. She’s also interested in adult development, focusing on late midlife adults’ emotions and interpersonal relationships. Outside of her studies, she enjoys writing, playing the violin, and traveling.
Halle McLean
Halle McLean is a doctoral student in the Human Development & Social Policy program at Northwestern University. She received her bachelor’s degree in Psychology and English Literature from Swarthmore College, where her undergraduate research examined perceptions of health and environmental sustainability in food packaging, as well as themes of nostalgia, uncanniness, and meaning-making in 21st-century literature. Halle’s current research brings together her training in literary analysis and her interests in psychosocial development and well-being. She examines how people use life stories to make sense of relationships, health and reproductive experiences, and life transitions and turning points.
Leah Ouellet
Leah Ouellet is a doctoral student in the Human Development and Social Policy program at Northwestern University. She received her bachelor’s degree in public policy from the University of Michigan and a master’s degree in criminal justice from Wayne State University. Prior to starting at Northwestern, she worked as a mitigation specialist on behalf of juvenile lifers at Michigan’s State Appellate Defender Office and facilitated poetry workshops inside Michigan prisons. Leah is interested in how narrative identity intersects with sentencing policy and decision-making, with a focus on cultural scripts, identity development, and ideas about punishment and redemption.
Affiliates
Jonathan M. Adler, PhD
Jack J. Bauer, PhD
Henry R. Cowan, PhD
Keith Cox, PhD
Ed De St. Aubin, PhD
Will Dunlop, PhD (In Memory)
Phillip L. Hammack, PhD
Brady Jones, PhD
Courtney Meiling Jones, PhD
Miriam Klevan, LCSW, PhD
Jiffy Lansing, PhD
Majse Lind, PhD
Jen Pals Lilgendahl, PhD
Jennifer Lodi-Smith, PhD
Regina Lopata Logan, PhD
Kate McLean, PhD
Ursula Moffitt, Ph.D
Nicky Newton, PhD
Monisha Pasupathi, PhD
Hollen Reischer, PhD
Onnie Rogers, Ph.D
Carolyn P. Swen, PhD
Moin Syed, PhD
Ariana Turner, PhD
Nic M. Weststrate, PhD
Joshua Wilt, PhD