Nur Hani Zainal

Assistant Professor

Ph.D. (Penn State), M.Sc. (Penn State), B.Soc.Sci. (Hons.) (NUS)

Dr. Hani is a Presidential Young Professorship (PYP) Assistant Professor in Clinical Psychology at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and the Director of the Optimizing Wellness (OWL) Lab. She completed a two-year postdoctoral research fellowship at the Harvard Medical School (HMS), received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from The Pennsylvania State University, and completed her predoctoral clinical fellowship at the HMS-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) - Cognitive Behavioral Scientist Track.

Her research interest focuses on how executive functioning, social cognition, and cognitive-behavioral strategies link to the etiology, maintenance, and treatment of anxiety and depressive disorders. She is also interested in technology-facilitated interventions and psychoneuroimmunology. To achieve these aims, she uses a variety of approaches and datasets. These include cross-sectional and longitudinal surveys, basic science experiments, ecological momentary assessments, and prospective cross-panel designs. To this end, she hopes to make novel and positively impactful contributions to basic science and translational clinical research and practice. Also, Dr. Hani is a recipient of awards such as the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT) Leonard Krasner Dissertation Award, Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) Alies Muskin Career Development Leadership Program (CDLP), and the Pennsylvania State University (PSU) Superior Teaching and Research (STAR) award.