Research Focus. Dr. Gupta will join the Department of Psychology in Fall 2025 as an Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology. Her research is dedicated to understanding the development and maintenance of emotional processes in adolescents at risk for severe mental illnesses (SMI), such as schizophrenia. Adolescence is a pivotal time characterized by novelty, change, and identity formation. During this period, adolescents are immersed in new experiences, social relationships take on heightened importance, new hobbies and interests are explored, and future goals grow and develop. Positive emotional experiences can be crucial in enabling adolescents to thrive in their environments. Dr. Gupta's research seeks to address her questions within the context of these adolescent developmental processes, with a strong commitment to emphasizing the practical, real-world implications of her findings.

Research Goals. Dr. Gupta's work aims to identify risk markers for SMI, with the ultimate goal of informing and contributing to prevention strategies, early identification efforts, and intervention development. In addition to uncovering the processes that contribute to the onset of SMI, she is also dedicated to understanding the factors that help protect adolescents who may be vulnerable to SMI, promoting their resilience. Dr. Gupta is also interested in how early life experiences and structural factors influence emotional processes during adolescence and contribute to the etiology of SMI. To explore her research questions, Dr. Gupta develops and applies conceptual models and employs a multi-level approach utilizing methods such as clinical interviews, behavioral measures, facial expression analysis and coding tools, neuroimaging, eye-tracking, and advanced computational statistics.

Key Research Topics. At the intersection of clinical psychology, developmental psychopathology, affective science, and prevention science, Dr. Gupta's research addresses the following topics:

1. How emotional processes (e.g., internal experiences, facial expressions), reward mechanisms, and negative symptoms (e.g., anhedonia) become disrupted in adolescents at risk for SMI.
2. What factors help protect and keep some adolescents resilient, preventing the development of SMI.
3. The development of interventions aimed at slowing down and/or preventing the onset of SMI.

Dr. Gupta is interested in accepting a doctoral student for Fall 2025.

Selected Publications (see full listing at Google Scholar):

Gupta, T., Seah, T.H.S., Eckstrand, K.L., Rengasamy, M., Horter, C., Silk, J.S., Jones, N.P., Ryan, N.D., Phillips, M.L., Haas, G.L., Nance, M., Lindenmuth, M., Forbes, E.E (in press). Two-year trajectories of anhedonia in adolescents at transdiagnostic risk for severe mental illness: Association with clinical symptoms and brain-symptom links.  Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Science.

Gupta, T., Eckstrand, K. L., Lenniger, C. J., Haas, G. L., Silk, J. S., Ryan, N. D., ... & Forbes, E. E. (2024). Anhedonia in adolescents at transdiagnostic familial risk for severe mental illness: Clustering by symptoms and mechanisms of association with behavior. Journal of Affective Disorders, 347, 249-261.

Gupta, T., Eckstrand, K. L., & Forbes, E. E. (2024). Annual Research Review: Puberty and the development of anhedonia–considering childhood adversity and inflammation. Journal of child Psychology and Psychiatry, 65(4), 459-480.

Gupta, T., Antezana, L., Porter, C., Mayanil, T., Bylsma, L. M., Maslar, M., & Horton, L. E. (2023). Skills program for awareness, connectedness, and empowerment: A conceptual framework of a skills group for individuals with a psychosis-risk syndrome. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 14, 1083368.

Gupta, T., Osborne, K. J., Nadig, A., Haase, C. M., & Mittal, V. A. (2023). Alterations in facial expressions in individuals at risk for psychosis: a facial electromyography approach using emotionally evocative film clips. Psychological Medicine, 53(12), 5829-5838.

Gupta, T., Cowan, H. R., Strauss, G. P., Walker, E. F., & Mittal, V. A. (2021). Deconstructing negative symptoms in individuals at clinical high-risk for psychosis: evidence for volitional and diminished emotionality subgroups that predict clinical presentation and functional outcome. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 47(1), 54-63.

Gupta, T., Haase, C. M., Strauss, G. P., Cohen, A. S., & Mittal, V. A. (2019). Alterations in facial expressivity in youth at clinical high-risk for psychosis. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 128(4), 341.

Gupta, T., & Mittal, V. A. (2019). Advances in clinical staging, early intervention, and the prevention of psychosis. F1000Research, 8.