Mikaela joined the Sleep/Wake team in 2020 as a student in the Massey Doctorate of Clinical Psychology programme (DClinPsych). Mikaela graduated with a DClinPsych in 2025. For her doctoral thesis, she explored the bidirectional relationship between sleep and mental health using data from the E Moe Māmā/Moe Kura study, focusing specifically on the longitudinal relationships between maternal mental health and child sleep.
Mikaela completed her Master’s degree at Harvard University, where her thesis explored the relationships between sleep, emotion regulation, and non-suicidal self-injury in adolescents. She gained several years’ experience as a research assistant at Harvard and as a mental health counsellor and group facilitator at a residential treatment centre.
She is currently a Clinical Psychologist at Te Whatu Ora - Health New Zealand.