Members

Completed an honors degree in psychology, professional qualifications in clinical psychology and a PhD in neuroscience at the University of Otago, New Zealand. Following this she took up an appointment as a clinical psychologist in a large public hospital before returning to an academic position in the Psychology Department at the University of Otago. She taught graduate and undergraduate courses in adult and child abnormal psychology and graduate courses child assessment and intervention. At Otago, she established an active research program focusing on understanding the etiology and management of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and supervised numerous undergraduate, Masters and PhD students. In 2007, she joined the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) initial research project first as Principal Investigator and then Professor of the Human Developmental Neurobiology research unit. With her team, she established the OIST Children’s Research Center to undertake research on the nature, etiology and management of ADHD with English and Japanese speaking children and families. Throughout her time at OIST she has taken an active role in helping to establish the Graduate University.

I've had the privilege to work with the Human Developmental Neurobiology Unit/Children's Research Center since when it was first established!

I received a PhD in Clinical Psychology from George Mason University, completed an internship and residency in child psychology, and maintain a clinical psychology license in Virginia, USA. I speak Japanese and English. My research focuses on reinforcement processing in ADHD, ranging from experimental imaging and behavioral studies to translation of basic knowledge into practice. I have been working with community stakeholders to explore ways to provide research-informed behavioral support for children and families with divergent needs, including mobile-based parenting tools, animation content, and community-led learning spaces. I believe there is much that science can learn from people’s everyday lives and diverse cultural contexts. I’m also working toward building integrated systems that connect research, digital platforms, and professional and community supports. I hope our work will lead to increased access to quality information and care!  

Loving habits project: https://www.oist.jp/crc/community-participatory-projects

My role within the Tripp Unit is to guide the assessment and diagnosis of our wonderful volunteers! I am a clinical neuropsychologist by training, having completed a PhD in Clinical Psychology at Idaho State University in 2017 and a postdoctoral fellowship in neuropsychology at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in 2019. I have been working with the Tripp Unit since 2022 and continue to maintain an active license to practice psychology in the state of Vermont.

My clinical interests are broad, ranging from ADHD to movement disorders to intractable epilepsy. I love my clinical work, but I have always been fascinated by research that explores how our brains regulate desire and reward. In the Unit, I get to enjoy both!

My contribution here in the Tripp unit and at the CRC involves completing cognitive and academic assessments with the great kids who participate in our research! I have a passion for working with kids and love being able to play a role in the exciting research that is being conducted here at OIST. I hold an Educational Specialist degree in School Psychology from George Fox University. Prior to joining the assessment team here at the Children’s Research Center, I worked as a School Psychologist in a variety of US public schools, including rural, urban and remote settings. In my free time, I love exploring Okinawa with my husband and two daughters, especially beach combing to look for sea glass!

I am a certified clinical psychologist in Japan and a research fellow at OIST. My research focuses on developing tools to measure how children respond to rewards and punishments, with the aim of guiding families in establishing behavioral support approaches tailored to their children's needs.
I received my PhD in Human Science from Waseda University in Japan. I am thrilled to be part of the vibrant research environment at OIST, where I can collaborate with inspiring colleagues and contribute to advancing knowledge in my field. I am also passionate about translating my research findings into meaningful practices that benefit society, starting with the Okinawan community and beyond.

Publications (google scholar) | Linkedin | researchmap

I am a postdoctoral researcher in the Human Developmental Neurobiology unit and the Children’s Research Center at OIST, under the supervision of Prof. dr. Gail Tripp. My research focuses on altered sensitivity to reward and punishment in children with ADHD. In my research, I focus mostly on experimental paradigms to investigate this altered sensitivity, using both behavioral and physiological outcome measures. 

I am trained both as a clinical and experimental psychologist, and have an additional degree in statistics and data science. I received my PhD in psychology in November 2023 at the KU Leuven in Belgium, after which I came to OIST to start as a postdoctoral fellow in January 2024. 

Publications (google scholar) | LinkedIn 

A neurobiologist by training, I earned my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the Jagiellonian University in Cracow, Poland, and the University of Bonn, Germany, respectively. Having always had a great research interest in the nature and causes of ADHD, I first joined the Human Developmental Neurobiology Unit/Children’s Research Center as a research intern in 2019.

Currently a PhD student, at CRC I seek to advance the knowledge about children’s understanding of, and decision making during, social interactions.

I earned my Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Bioengineering from the University of California, San Diego. I joined the Tripp Unit in 2022 and am currently a PhD candidate. My research focuses on sensitivity to reward-predictive cues in children with and without ADHD. I use a combination of behavioral paradigms and physiological measures - including eye-tracking and heart rate monitoring - to better understand the mechanisms underlying motivational processes in ADHD.

I am originally from Okinawa, and I am grateful to have started my PhD at OIST in 2024. I received my bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Tsukuba, where I studied sensory issues in individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders. My current research interest is sensitivity to reward-predicting cues in children with and without ADHD. I am fascinated by how a seemingly simple process - learning the link between a cue and a reward - may be key to unraveling individual differences in behavior.

Publications (google scholar) | LinkedIn | researchmap

Dr. Hend Samniya obtained her PhD in the Human Developmental Neurobiology unit in 2026 with her thesis on the topic of "Language Use, Monitoring, and Repair in the Social and Narrative Discourse of Children with and without ADHD".