Riley Maher
she/her/hers
Graduate Student
Entry Year: 2025-2026
Faculty Mentor(s): Lisa Starr
- Office Location
- 475 Meliora Hall
Research Overview
My research interests focus on investigating factors that contribute to the development of internalizing disorders, such as life stress and other environmental influences, as well as their impact on interpersonal functioning and well-being. I also have a particular interest in risk and protective factors involved in stress generation and social thinning.
Selected Publications
- Maher, R. E., Klemballa, D. M., Walther, S., Mittal, V. A., Shankman, S. A., & Letkiewicz, A. M. (2025). Anhedonia Relates to Increased Psychomotor Retardation Using an Instrumental Handwriting-Based Measure. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 47(4), 74.
- Lozano-Goupil, J., Shankman, S., Walther, S., Wuethrich, F., Maher, R. E., Grzelak, L. N., & Mittal, V. A. (2025). Automatic quantification of hand gestures in current and remitted Major Depressive Disorder during oral expression. Journal of Affective Disorders, 389, 119684.
- Rappaport, B. I., Weinberg, A., Glazer, J. E., Grzelak, L., Maher, R. E., Zinbarg, R. E., & Shankman, S. A. (2025). Trait state occasion (TSO) modeling of event-related potentials (ERPs). Biological Psychology, 196, 109000.
Selected Presentations
- Maher, R., Walther, S., Mittal, V. A., Shankman, S. A., Letkiewicz, A. M. (October, 2024). A Laboratory-Based Measure of Psychomotor Retardation Reveals that Psychomotor Slowing Scales with Anhedonia. Poster presented at the Annual Meetings of the Society for Research in Psychopathology. Montreal, Canada.
- Parmacek, S., Pratt, D., Lauren Grzelak, L., McFarland, M., Maher, R., Walther, S., Mittal, V. A., Shankman, S. A. (October, 2024). Procedural Learning among Currently and Remitted Depressed Individuals. Poster presented at the Annual Meetings of the Society for Research in Psychopathology. Montreal, Canada.
- Maher, R., Walther, S., Mittal, V. A., Shankman, S. A., Letkiewicz, A. M. (September, 2024). Assessing the Reliability of an Instrumental Measure of Velocity Scaling and its Association with Depression. Poster presented at NU Research Day. Chicago, IL.
Additional Information
2023-2025: Research Assistant, NEAR Lab, Northwestern University (PI: Dr. Stewart Shankman)
2023: BA in Psychology with Honors, Summa Cum Laude, University of Missouri-Columbia