Hayes is the director and principal investigator at Ohio State’s MINDSET lab, which examines the acute and chronic effects of head injury and psychological stress on the brain and neurocognitive function. The lab employs cognitive neuroscience techniques, such as MRI, along with genetic and biomarker data to investigate individual differences in risk for accelerated aging and neurodegenerative disease. Hayes holds faculty affiliations with Ohio State’s Chronic Brain Injury Program, the Center for Cognitive and Behavioral Brain Sciences and the Sports Medicine program. She has a BA in psychology from the University of California, Berkeley, and a PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Arizona.