Rachel (Roxy) Cundiff-O'Sullivan, PhD

Rachel (Roxy) Cundiff-O’Sullivan joined the lab as a postdoctoral fellow in January 2024. She completed her bachelor’s degrees in Psychology and Cognitive/Behavioral Neuroscience at Loyola University Chicago. She then went on to complete a one-year master’s degree from the University of Chicago in the Masters of Arts Program in the Social Sciences (MAPSS), where she examined the relationships between alexithymia, psychological distress, and chronic pain in a sample of patients seeking care at a multidisciplinary pain clinic. Her interest in chronic pain research drove her to pursue a PhD in Neuroscience at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. Her dissertation examined biological, psychological, and sociocultural contributions to disrupted pain processing in the brains of patients with chronic orofacial pain using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). She aims to continue her work in the PAL lab looking at the intersection of biopsychosocial factors and neurobiological mechanisms underlying chronic pain symptoms from adolescence to adulthood. A native of Chicago, Roxy loves to travel the world with her husband, play with her two cats, and cross-stich while watching TV.