A LIFE IN CHAPTERS
I study how we think about pain,
and how those thoughts shape what we feel.
On curiosity, care & small wonders.
Behavioral science & neuroscienceDuke Kunshan University · Duke University · 2027
CHAPTER I
I’m Anastasiia, a behavioral science and neuroscience student at Duke Kunshan University. I study how we think and feel, with an eye for the person behind the question.
PLACES THAT SHAPED ME
CHAPTER II
Pain is a physical experience. It is also something we interpret, anticipate, and try to put into words. I want to understand how those thoughts become part of what we feel.
ONE QUESTION
For my honors thesis, I designed an experiment to ask whether the order of two questions can change a person’s judgment of pain. Behavioral responses and EEG offer two ways of looking at the same moment.
About 100 people have taken part online; EEG collection is ongoing. With Dr. Shan Wang.
ANOTHER QUESTION
A single questionnaire is only a glimpse. Daily diaries and brief, repeated check-ins can bring us closer to life as it happens. I lead a team reviewing how these approaches capture the relationship between catastrophic thinking and pain.
Systematic review and manuscript in preparation, with Dr. Brandon Knettel.
ALONG THE WAY
My work has taken me from the pain laboratory of Andrea Nackley to studies of neural circuits with Chia-Chien Chen. With Tamar Kushnir, I worked with families to study children’s attention, planning, and social influence.
Other projects explore postpartum depression with Christine Gray, identity with Sarah Gaither, and consumer behavior with Claudia Nisa. Different settings, with people and their experiences at the centre.
LEARNING BETWEEN PLACES
My undergraduate home, where behavioral science meets my curiosity about the brain.
My third-year exchange brought new classrooms, laboratories, and ways of asking questions.
CHAPTER III
Care can begin with a conversation, an unfamiliar classroom, or noticing something that makes an ordinary day harder.
ON CAMPUS
On DKU’s Student Leaders Board, I led our first approved initiative for free emergency menstrual products. Students’ everyday concerns became a shared effort, with around 1,000 products distributed and 250 student supporters.
LISTENING & LEARNING
As a resident assistant and peer mentor, I support students through adjustment and stress. With IDD Empower and a rehabilitation centre, I adapt activities for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Teaching is another part of this work, from medical English with Chinese clinicians to film-based psychology lessons and mentoring young neuroscience researchers.
LOOKING AHEAD
Through the 2026 Millennium Fellowship, I’m developing a toolkit to help teachers recognise distress among students preparing for China’s college entrance examination, and connect them with support.
IV · Writing
I write about the experiences that shape people: learning, belonging, service, and finding their way.
SELECTED STORIES
EDITING & TRANSLATION
As an associate editor and peer reviewer for Impulse and the Journal of Young Investigators, I help undergraduate research find its clearest expression.
My Russian translation support is acknowledged in Caio Yurgel’s The alienation of Valerii Pereleshin, published in Textual Practice (2026).
Article & acknowledgmentsCHAPTER V
Away from the lab, I’m often reading or exploring somewhere on foot. I like the things that ask me to slow down: an old painting, a quiet street, a few pages over matcha.
Moving between countries has made languages part of everyday life. I speak Russian, English, and Serbian, and I’m learning Mandarin.
SMALL PLEASURES
Warm syrniki, matcha beside an open book, and no hurry to reach the last page. Some of my favourite things make an ordinary day feel a little more generous.
When I travel, I leave room for an unplanned walk, a painting that makes me linger, and ice cream on the way back.
P.S. · To be continued
I’d be glad to connect about research, doctoral opportunities, and the questions we have in common.
