Prior to starting a PhD in Biological Psychology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Melisa graduated with a Psychology Bachelor’s from University of California, Berkeley, and a Clinical Psychology Master’s from Leiden University. She was a research assistant at the psychiatry department of University of California, San Francisco, psychology department of Erasmus University Rotterdam, and was a lecturer at Leiden University. She has been actively involved in psychophysiological studies in relation to anxiety, borderline, schizophrenia, dissociation, and misophonia. Her research interests include the physiological pathways through which allostatic load gets generated, and the precise ambulatory measurement of the physiological stress response.

“How can we accurately measure physiological stress responses and more carefully assess cardiac vagal control in daily life research using wearable monitors?”

Heart rate variability (HRV) can dynamically change within individuals in response to changing emotional, cognitive, and metabolic demands. Both resting levels and reactivity of HRV have been linked to the prevalence of psychological and cardiometabolic conditions. Melisa’s research focuses on how to control for the effects of respiratory behavior (e.g., respiration rate, tidal volume, unique respiratory demands of speaking) on HRV to improve non-invasive measurement of cardiac parasympathetic (vagal) activity in daily life. To identify optimal methodologies for quantifying cardiac parasympathetic activity in ecological settings, she uses multilevel modelling, machine learning techniques and ecological momentary assessment. Her project also involves the selection of wearables that can validly capture physiological responses in response to psychosocial stressors, including those personally significant, in both laboratory and daily life settings.

PhD student,
VU Amsterdam