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CeciliaWestbrook
Cecilia Westbrook
Former Graduate Student, Center for Healthy Minds

Dates of Employment: September 2012 - June 2017

Cecilia is a former graduate student at the Center for Healthy Minds.

She is interested in the role of executive function and memory in the risk for internalizing disorders, with a major focus on rumination.

Cecilia is interested in how rumination affects, and is affected by, cognitive function both immediately and across development. She is especially interested in how rumination and cognitive style affect cognitive and affective processing following a real-life stressor.

Publications

Light, S., Moran, Z., Swander, L., Le, V., Cage, B., Burghy, C., Westbrook, C., Greishar, L., & Davidson, R. J. (2015). Electromyographically assessed empathic concern and empathic happiness predict increased prosocial behavior in adults. Biological Psychology. PMC ID: in process

Tabibnia, G, Creswell, J.D., Kraynak, T., Westbrook, C., Julson, E., & Tindle, H.A. (2014). Common neural mechanism underlies craving regulation, emotion regulation, and motor inhibitory control in smokers. Clinical Psychological Science. NIHMS580949

Westbrook, C.A., Tabibnia, G., Julson, E., Tindle, H., & Creswell J. D. (2013): Mindful attention reduces neural and self-reported cue-induced craving in smokers. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 8(1), 73-84. PMCID: PMC3541484

Education

B.S., Psychology and Biological Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University

M.S., Psychology, University of Wisconsin–Madison

What does well-being mean to me?

"It's not about being happy all the time, but being able to respond flexibly to situations to maximize the outcome and avoid self-criticism."