Developmental Psychology

Brad received his PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Iowa in 2011, and worked as a Postdoc with Dr. William Lovallo at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. He also received an MA in Philosophy in 2008 from Georgia State University. He has studied the role of the fronto-limbic neural system in affective and social functioning, working to delineate underlying cognitive processes such as guiding attention to salient information and integrating affective information into behavioral organization. Building on this work, he is researching preventive interventions in youth for cultivating those cognitive processes (e.g., attention training, mindfulness, and behaviorist approaches) to prevent affective and behavioral disorders and promote fronto-limbic development and psychological well-being. His interdisciplinary approach focuses on social and emotional processes at multiple levels (basic and applied), from multiple perspectives (neural, psychological, and philosophical), and with multiple methods (neuroimaging, lesion, intervention, and high-risk populations). When not doing all of that fun stuff, he is most likely playing hockey, riding his bike, or cooking and playing board games with his partner.

Eran Auday is a second year graduate student in the child-clinical program working with Dr. Ginger Moore. Eran is also working with Dr. Koraly Perez-Edgar in the CAT Lab. He received his B.S. in Industrial Engineering and his M.S. in Bio-Medical Engineering from Ben-Gurion University is Israel. Eran has worked in the IT industry since 1999 as an information-systems analyst and recently joined the doctoral program in the department of psychology at Penn State. Eran's research interests are focused on child psychopathology and more specifically; stress and anxiety in children and adolescents in an environment of violence (family, community, war) or as a result of parental-emotional deprivation.

Charlie is broadly interested in the genetic and environmental influences on child socioemotional development and how that development affects early school success. Charlie works primarily on the Early Growth and Development Study on research projects designed to investigate genetic, environmental, and prenatal influences on child temperament development, school adjustment and trajectories of child problem behavior. Charlie also has strong interests in quantitative genetic methodology and has worked on modeling genetic and environmental influences on family relationship systems using the NEAD study.

Sakshi is a fourth year graduate student in the Developmental Psychology area. She received her B.S. degree from Stony Brook University, NY in 2010. She is currently working in the Context and Development Lab with Dr. Dawn Witherspoon. Her research interests include understanding parental involvement in youth's education in multiple contexts. Specifically, she is interested in understanding how individual, cultural and, contextual factors, like ethnicity, socio-economic status, acculturation, and neighborhood context, can influence parents' involvement in youth's education.

Saskia received her B.A. in Psychology, English, and African Studies from Kalamazoo College in 2012. She is currently in her second year of the developmental psychology PhD program at Penn State University, and works with Dr. Dawn Witherspoon in the Context and Development lab. Her research interests include the effects of acculturation on identity development and academic and health outcomes among immigrant adolescents and children, and the way that these effects operate in specific neighborhood and school contexts.

Giulia is a first year graduate student originally from Queens, New York. She received her BA in Psychology and Italian from Penn State in 2011. Her research interests surround the development of spatial abilities, especially concerning the influences of parenting, culture and ethnicity, and gender. Current work examines how caregivers may help children to increase their cognitive skills through play. Outside of the lab, Giulia enjoys gymnastics, cooking, and spending time with her brand new niece

Cori is a second year graduate student working in Dr. Lynn Liben's Cognitive and Social Development Lab. She received her B.S. in Psychology and M.S. in Experimental Psychology from Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 2011. Her research interests are in cognitive development, particularly in spatial cognitive development and navigation as well as categorization and concept development.

Emily is a third year graduate student originally from Seattle, WA. She received a B.S. in Psychology from Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia before coming to Penn State. Her research interests are in gender development and how the information children gather about gender through informal avenues like play impacts aspirations and achievement. Some of her current work examines the ways in which culturally iconic toys like Barbie may be particularly influential for girls who attend highly to gender, as well as how such toys can be used as vehicles for increasing interest in STEM careers.

Jessie received her BSc in Psychology from Bristol University and MSc in Psychological Research from Oxford University. For her master’s thesis, she employed psychophysiological methods to study the acquisition of fear and anxiety in anxious adults. Since graduation, she has been working on projects that assess the efficacy of cognitive bias modification of interpretations training in ameliorating interpretation bias and negative mood in Chinese adolescents with subclinical and clinical anxiety. For her Ph.D., She is broadly interested in how neurocognitive processes interact with genetic and environmental factors to contribute to the risk and resilience of developing social-emotional maladaptations in temperamentally at-risk youths.

Santiago received his B.A. in neuroscience from Hiram College in 2011. He is currently working on his Ph.D. in developmental psychology at Penn State University. In his years as an undergraduate, he mostly worked with Dr. Koehnle studying animal temperament in free-living squirrels and laboratory rats. Currently, he is working with Dr. Kristin Buss and Dr. Koraly Pérez-Edgar studying emotion, emotion regulation, and temperament in children. He is particularly interested in the physiological and neurobiological methods used to study and characterize temperament and affect.

Giorgia received her B.A. in Psychology from George Mason University in 2012. She is currently is a first year graduate student working in the Lab of Developmental Neuroscience with Dr. Suzy Scherf. Her research focuses on the face processing abilities of typically and atypically developing children and adolescents. She is particularly interested in the role of pubertal development in the development of face processing biases.

Meghan is working with Dr. Alysia Blandon in the Family and Child Development Lab and with Dr. Kristin Buss in the Emotion Development Lab. Her research interests focus on multiple aspects of family subsystems and their impact on children's social and emotional development. She is particularly interested in the family influences on the development of children's prosocial behavior and emotions.

Elizabeth is a first year graduate student in the developmental psychology area working with Dr. Alysia Blandon and Dr. Kristin Buss. She received her B.S. in Psychology from the University of Mary Washington in 2010 and her M.A. in Applied Developmental Psychology from George Mason University in 2012. Her research interests focus primarily on family processes, in particular parenting and interparental relationships, impact on child social and emotional development.

Nhi is currently a third year graduate student pursuing her PhD in Developmental Psychology under the mentorship of Drs. Perez-Edgar and Buss. She received her bachelors in Child Psychology and Biology from the University of Minnesota, where she conducted research with Dr. Philip Zelazo on the development and neural bases of executive function throughout the lifespan. Her Master's work looked at the neural underpinnings of attention bias to threat and attention training. For her doctoral work, she would like to investigate the neurocognitive processes involved in emotion regulation and explore effective emotion regulation strategies toward adaptive behavior, particularly in the context of psychopathology.

Amanda is a graduate student in the Developmental Psychology at Penn State. In 2010, she earned her B.A. with concentrations in Psychology and Spanish from Temple University. She is currently working in the Brain Development Lab under the guidance of Dr. Rick Gilmore. Her research interests include perception and action in infancy and childhood and the development of the visual system.