Emma Moscardini
Dr. Moscardini graduated from LSU with her PhD in psychology in 2023. She currently is a post-doctoral fellow at McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School where she attended internship. She grew up in Safety Harbor, Florida and graduated with her B.S in Psychology from the University of Florida (UF). As an undergraduate, she volunteered at a suicide hotline doing emergency mobile outreach in Alachua County. She also was a lab manager in UF’s psychology department and worked at an in-patient addiction treatment center.
Emma continues to pursue research regarding mechanisms of change in suicide-specific interventions such as the Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality. She is also interested in leveraging ecological momentary assessment to study suicide risk management.
In her free time, Emma enjoys running, rock climbing, and traveling.
Jessica (Jess) Gerner
Jess received her masters degree in psychology at LSU in 2023. She currently is a doctoral candidate at Catholic Universities of America under the mentorship of David Jobes. She grew up in Kentucky and graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 2018 with a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and a minor in Deaf Studies. She spent two years completing a Post-baccalaureate fellowship at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), where she worked on “The Neurobiology of Suicide” study, prior to attending LSU.
Jess’ primary interests are in identifying risk and protective factors for suicide and improving suicide risk assessment methods. She is interested in proximal risk factors for suicide behavior, as well as exploring the efficacy of behavioral task performance as a means for predicting suicide risk.
Jeffrey Powers
Dr. Powers graduated from the LSU clinical psychology doctoral program in 2024. He currently is a postdoctoral fellow at Cincinnati VA Medical Center. He grew up in New Hampshire and moved to Kentucky after high school where he enlisted in the Army as a medic. He had deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan and left service in 2012.
He stayed in KY and graduated from Western Kentucky University in 2017 with a Bachelor's degree in Psychological Sciences and a minor in History. He continued his education at WKU and graduated in 2019 with a Master's degree in Psychological Sciences.
His primary interests are in the treatment and prevention of suicide, but also the issues that are pervasive among veterans and armed forces personnel including PTSD, substance use, and traumatic brain injury.
In his free time he likes to spend time with his wife, bull terrier (Ivan) and also hike, hunt, fish, build furniture, and explore Baton Rouge.
Nicolas Oakey-Frost
Dr. Oakey-Frost graduated from the LSU clinical psychology program in 2024. He currently is a postdoctoral research fellow at UT Health Sciences Center—San Antonio. He graduated from the University of Utah in 2016 with a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and a minor in Anthropology. He worked briefly as a reunification caseworker for the Department of Child and Family Services in Salt Lake City after graduation.
For the two years prior to his studies at LSU, Nicolas worked for the National Center for Veterans Studies researching PTSD and suicide prevention.
Nick is interested in improving risk assessment methodologies by identifying objective behavioral indicators of risk and elucidating the cognitive mechanisms underlying these observable behaviors. Further, he seeks to identify novel protective/resiliency variables and to understand how the presence or absence of these variables can help differentiate between suicide ideators and attempters.
