Oakland Cognitive Behavior Therapy Center
Current Research Assistants
Caroline Harris began working as a research assistant for Dr. Persons at the Oakland CBT Center in February 2022 after completing her bachelor’s degree in Psychology at UC Berkeley in December 2021. She plans to attend graduate school in clinical psychology.
Letian (Jane) Li is an undergraduate student double majoring in Psychology and Molecular & Cell Biology (MCB) at UC Berkeley. She began working with Dr. Persons at the Oakland CBT Center in May 2022.
Former Research Assistants
Genevieve Freedman
Genevieve Freedman is an undergraduate student pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Comparative Literature at UC Berkeley. She began doing volunteer work for Dr. Persons at the Oakland CBT Center in June 2021.
Megan Hsiao, B.A.
Megan Hsiao worked with Dr. Persons and Ms. Courry as a research assistant at the Oakland CBT Center from 2018 to 2021 while completing her undergraduate degree and attending post baccalaureate courses at UC Berkeley. During her time working at the Oakland CBT Center Megan contributed to:
Gates, V., Hsiao, M., Zieve, G. G., Courry, R., & Persons, J. B. (2021). Relationship to CBT outcome and dropout of decision support tools of the written case formulation, list of treatment goals and plot of symptom scores. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 142, 103874. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2021.103874
Persons, J.B., Thomas, C., Hsiao, M., & Courry, R. (in preparation). How to build a research database from data you collect to guide your clinical work.
Francesca Leventhal
Francesca Leventhal worked with Dr. Persons and Ms. Courry as a research assistant at the Oakland CBT Center in 2020 and early 2021 while pursuing a BA in psychology at the University of Berkeley, California.
Agnes Zhao
Agnes Zhao
Agnes worked with Dr. Persons and Ms. Courry as a research assistant at the Oakland CBT Center in late 2018 and early 2019 when she was an undergraduate at UC Berkeley.
Eric Pineda
Eric worked with Dr. Persons and Ms. Courry as a research assistant during 2019 when he was an undergraduate student at UC Berkeley.
Connie Fee, B.A.
Connie, who was a UC Berkeley graduate, worked with Dr. Persons as her research assistant during the years 2017-2019. She left us in 2019 to go to graduate school in Public Health at the University of San Francisco.
During her time working with Dr. Persons, Connie contributed to a paper and a conference presentation:
Jensen, A. S., Fee, C., Miles, A. L., Beckner, V. L., Owen, D., & Persons, J. B. (2020). Congruence of patient takeaways and homework assignment content predicts homework compliance in psychotherapy. Behavior Therapy, 51(3), 424-433.
Jensen, A. S., Persons, J. B., Fee, C., Miles, A. L., Beckner, V. L., Eidelman, P., Hong, J. J., & Owen, D. (2017, November). Congruence between what a patient reports learning in session and the content of homework assignments predicts homework compliance in naturalistic CBT. Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, San Diego, CA.
Alexandra S. Jensen, B.A.
Alexandra worked as a research assistant with Dr. Persons from 2017-2019 when she was a post baccalaureate student at UC Berkeley. In 2019 she left us to go to law school at Georgetown University. During her time working with Dr. Persons, Alexandra contributed to two papers and a conference poster presentation:
Jensen, A. S., Fee, C., Miles, A. L., Beckner, V. L., Owen, D., & Persons, J. B. (2020). Congruence of patient takeaways and homework assignment content predicts homework compliance in psychotherapy. Behavior Therapy, 51(3), 424-433.
Jensen, A. S., Persons, J. B., Fee, C., Miles, A. L., Beckner, V. L., Eidelman, P., Hong, J. J., & Owen, D. (2017, November). Congruence between what a patient reports learning in session and the content of homework assignments predicts homework compliance in naturalistic CBT. Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, San Diego, CA.
Persons, J. B., & Jensen, A. S. (2018). Publishing a single-case study. the Behavior Therapist, 41(2), 83-89.
Anthony L. Miles II, B.A.
Anthony worked as a research assistant with Dr. Persons in 2016-2017 when he was an undergraduate student at UC Berkeley, and for a few months after he graduated in 2016. In 2017 he left us to commence graduate study in a clinical psychology Ph.D. program at Northern Illinois University. During his time as Dr. Persons’ research assistant, Anthony contributed to:
Jensen, A. S., Fee, C., Miles, A. L., Beckner, V. L., Owen, D., & Persons, J. B. (2020). Congruence of patient takeaways and homework assignment content predicts homework compliance in psychotherapy. Behavior Therapy, 51(3), 424-433.
Lisa Ann D. Yu, M.S.
Lisa Ann worked as a research assistant with Dr. Persons in 2015, when she was an undergraduate student at UC Berkeley. After graduating from UC Berkeley, Lisa Ann graduated from Stanford University with an M.S. in Statistics. She contributed to:
Zieve, G. G., Persons, J. B., & Yu, L. A. D. (2019). Relationship between dropout and outcome of naturalistic cognitive behavior therapy. Behavior Therapy, 50, 189-199.
Howard Liu, M.S.
Howard Liu worked as an RA at the CBT Science Center, the predecessor of the Oakland CBT Center, for several years during his time as an undergraduate student at UC Berkeley, before going on to graduate school in Public Health at Harvard, where he completed his Ph.D. in 2018. During his time working as a research assistant with Dr. Persons, Howard collaborated on:
Persons, J. B., Koerner, K., Eidelman, P., Thomas, C., & Liu, H. (2016). Increasing psychotherapists’ adoption and implementation of the evidence-based practice of progress monitoring. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 76, 24-31.