Faculty Affiliates

Mr. Alley is a lover of art and the artistic mind set. For Rob, “Art is not a genre, it is an attitude toward activity.” As a result, he enjoys learning rules. But he also really enjoys breaking them. Therefore, as a musician and an educator, he lives in and outside of convention, depending on his collaborators. Rob loves working with other artists. He also loves showing so-called non-artistic people how they can recover their innate artistic capability. “With understanding and practice, we can all infuse art into our everyday activities, recapturing the joy of freedom from childhood, responsibly and ethically. This feeling and these capabilities never leave us. We just learn to ignore them as we ‘grow up’.” Rob maintains a robust performing career, having had the good fortune to have made music with some amazing people, including Jason Isbell, Paul Shaffer, Dave Douglas, Taylor Hicks, The Temptations, The Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Frankie Valli, Chad Fisher, Matthew Devine, Jay Frederick, Eric Essix, Rick Carter, The Arkansas Symphony and The Tuscaloosa Horns. He is also honored to have been awarded recognition for his efforts, including The Arkansas Arts Council Individual Artist award (2008), The Alabama Council on The Arts Individual Artist award (2013), and Druid Arts Musician of The Year (2015). All of these experiences have led Rob to the current step in his journey through life, as an instructor in The University of Alabama’s Honors College, where he teaches “Art for Life’s Sake”, “Leadership Lessons from Jazz”, and “Improvisation in Life Through Music”, courses which he created at the request of the College. Each of these focus on, and express, his philosophy on the arts and life in their own unique way.

Dr. Uibin Lee earned a PhD in Addictive Disorders and Recovery Studies from Texas Tech University. He completed his undergraduate and master's degrees in psychology at Handong Global University, in South Korea. He worked as a counselor at the Handong student counseling center and Korea Center on Gambling Problems. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Human Development and Family Studies at The University of Alabama. Dr. Lee's research interest focuses on behavioral addictions, specifically addictive behavior regarding gambling and gaming with the Self-determination framework. His current research projects include exploring motivational process underlying problematic financial trading.

Yingwei Yang is a mixed methods researcher, focusing on youth substance use, violence experiences, and suicidal behaviors. I am particularly interested in applying modeling approach and engaging adolescents to address the interrelationships of these health risk behaviors and explore community and environmental factors that affect adolescents’ mental and behavioral well-being.

Dr. Kristina McDonald’s research expertise is in the social development of children and adolescents. Much of my research focuses on the social cognitive processes underlying problematic peer interactions and how context may affect peer interactions. I also study family processes and how challenging life experiences (e.g., tornado exposure, trauma) may affect child and adolescent development. Kmcdonald2@ua.edu

Lucy Barnard-Brak is a Full Professor in the Department of Special Education. Her research interests focus on examining the educational experiences and outcomes of individuals with disabilities.

Dr. Changki Kim is an Assistant Professor in Exercise Science and serves as the Director of the Neuromuscular Physiology Lab for Healthy Aging. His research aims to 1) understand the neuromuscular mechanisms underlying motor deficits caused by aging and neurological diseases, and 2) utilize this knowledge to develop novel rehabilitation protocols. His approach involves collecting and analyzing both movement data (e.g., single- and multi-joint force control, gait, balance) and physiological data (e.g., EMG) to derive insights for improving motor function and rehabilitation strategies.

Dr. Abhay Lidbe joined the Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering at the University of Alabama as an Assistant Professor in Fall 2023. Prior to this role, he served as an Associate Researcher at the Alabama Transportation Institute, where he contributed to multiple funded research initiatives in areas such as transportation safety, connected vehicles, traffic simulation, and traffic signal optimization. He also played a key role in major state-funded projects, including the 2040 Alabama Transportation Infrastructure Performance and Conditions study and the Alabama Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Plan. Dr. Lidbe’s research lies at the intersection of transportation systems and human well-being, with a particular focus on enhancing access to opportunities that improve quality of life – especially in rural communities. His work addresses critical issues in transportation accessibility, mobility, and systemic barriers. He is currently leading two U.S. Department of Transportation–funded projects, CAReS and DRIVE-SMART, both aimed at improving transportation and public transit services in rural areas. He has published widely in peer-reviewed academic journals and conference proceedings, and actively contributes to the scholarly community. Dr. Lidbe was selected for the 2022–2023 Emerging Community Engagement Scholars cohort. He is also the UAB’s MHERC Health Equity Research Education Program scholar. He currently serves on the editorial board of Advances in Transportation Studies. He also serves as a reviewer for several respected academic journals.

Dr. Matthew Hudnall is an assistant professor of Management Information Systems, and the associate director of the Institute of Business Analytics. His research interests include cyber research. Hudnall can talk about cybercrime, and cybersecurity.

Rebecca S. Allen is a First-Generation Scholar who received her PhD from Washington University in St. Louis in 1994. She completed her clinical internship at UAB, a NIMH-funded postdoctoral fellowship at The Pennsylvania State University and became a Research Assistant Professor at UAB prior to coming to UA. She is a member of the APA Committee on Aging (2023-2025), President-Elect of APA Division 20, and past president of both the Society for Clinical Geropsychology and the Council for Professional Geropsycholgy Training Programs. Dr. Allen is a fellow of the Gerontological Society of America and the American Psychological Association. She teaches specialty courses in Geropsychology, Affect and Lifespan Development, and supervises undergraduate research.

Dr. Sharlene D. Newman Executive Director for the Alabama Life Research Institute Dr. Newman has helped clarify functional distinctions between brain regions involved in sentence comprehension, strengthening earlier interpretations of the functional roles assigned to different brain regions and providing strong empirical support for a particular theoretical model of sentence comprehension. Among the first scientists to use neuroimaging to study complex language function, Newman is a founding member of the IU Imaging Research Facility and later served as its director, where she developed collaborations investigating schizophrenia, the impact of cannabis and other substances on brain function, and concussions and brain health. She later became the director of the Program in Neuroscience within IU’s College of Arts and Sciences. Newman also chaired the Diversity Advancement Committee in her department, initiating regular gatherings for the department’s minority students to discuss concerns and opportunities. During her time in Indiana, she collaborated across campus with clinical scientists in her own department along with researchers in speech and hearing sciences, vision science, the media school and second language studies. Newman earned her master’s and doctorate in biomedical engineering from the University of Alabama at Birmingham after finishing her bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering at Vanderbilt University. After graduating from UAB in 1999, she worked as a postdoctoral associate and adjunct assistant professor of psychology at Carnegie Mellon University until 2004. She joined IU that year as an assistant professor, becoming associate professor in 2011 and a full professor in 2017. She was tapped as an associate vice provost in 2016.