CEHD is welcoming several new faculty members this year, including Charisse Pickron in the Institute of Child Development (ICD); Meixi and Stephanie Sisco in the Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development (OLPD); and Xiaoran Sun in the Department of Family Social Science (FSOS).
Charisse Pickron
Charisse Pickron is an assistant professor in ICD. She received her BA in psychology from Mount Holyoke College and her MS and PHD in developmental psychology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her areas of interest include cognitive development, developmental neuroscience, early childhood, infancy, perceptual and motor development, and social and emotional development.
“I study topics of perceptual and socio-cognitive development using a variety of measures, including behavioral, electrophysiological, and eye-tracking,” she says. “I envision a research team of undergraduate & graduate students as well as staff all committed to engaging with and learning from one another as well as with our larger community.”
Meixi
Meixi is an assistant professor in OLPD. She has a BSc in education and social policy from Northwestern University, a MEd in educational psychology and a PhD in learning sciences and human development from the University of Washington-Seattle. “She studies community and land-based education; culture, learning, well-being, and human development; STEM-Art education; and Indigenous Southeast Asia.”
“From mangrove forests to highland mountains, I grew up navigating languages, and knowledge systems across Hokchiu/MinQiang in Singapore and Lahu communities in northern Thailand,” she says. “These experiences center my life’s work on an enduring concern: how can schools contribute to the collective livelihoods and future wellbeing of Indigenous young people, their families, and the lands and waters where they live?”
Stephanie Sisco
Stephanie Sisco is an assistant professor in OLPD. She holds a BA in communication and history from the University of California-Davis, a MSEd in human resource development from Northern Illinois University, and a PhD in human resource development from UMN. Her areas of interest include diversity management; employee networks; social and participatory learning, culture in organizations; critical theory; and race-conscious equity and social justice.
“My research seeks to understand how social issues appear at work and influence the learning and development of professionals of color,” she says. “I aim to identify and challenge business practices that negatively impact the employability, experience, and advancement of racial minorities.”
Xiaoran Sun
Xiaoran Sun is joining the Department of Family Social Science this December as an assistant professor. She received her BS degree in psychology from Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China and master’s and doctoral degrees in human development and family studies from Pennsylvania State University. She receives her postdoctoral training in the Departments of Pediatrics and Communication at Stanford University and the Stanford Data Science Scholars Program. Her areas of research include family systems, adolescents and young adults; achievements and well-being; technology and cultural contexts; computational social science, big data and machine learning, and longitudinal dyadic data modeling.
“My research is mainly focused on how family systems shape well-being and achievement outcomes across adolescence and young adulthood in different cultural contexts, and the role of technology in these processes,” she says. “In addition, with my data science background, I am particularly interested in applying innovative methods and data to family and developmental research.
