Iulia Mihaila

Iulia is a graduate student in the Human Development and Family Studies Department. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology, with minors in French and Statistical Sciences, from the University of California – Santa Barbara in 2012. Iulia obtained her Master’s degree in Human Development and Family Studies from the University from Wisconsin-Madison in 2014. Broadly, Iulia’s interests lie in understanding outcomes for aging individuals with developmental disabilities and their families. She is interested in examining biopsychosocial models of healthy aging and understanding health processes that allow some individuals achieve more optimal outcomes than others. In addition to Iulia’s work in the Hartley Lab, she is currently involved in the Neurodegeneration in Aging Down Syndrome study run at the Waisman Center (PI: Brad Christian), which seeks to examine the relation between cognitive functioning and neuropathological change in aging adults with Down syndrome who are not yet experiencing symptoms of dementia, but who are at risk of early onset and progression of Alzheimer’s disease.