Although the semester is well underway, we didn’t want to miss the opportunity to welcome ICD’s new class of PhD in developmental psychology students. To the students, we’re so glad you’re here and we look forward to working with you across the next several years!
Maya Bowen – Developmental Science
Maya earned a BS in Human Development & BA in Psychology from UC-Davis in 2018. Her research interests include early childhood, prevention/intervention, stress and maltreatment, and vulnerable populations.
Bria Gresham – Developmental Science
Bria earned a BS in Psychology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 2019. Her research interests include adolescents and youth, prevention/intervention, resilience, stress and maltreatment, and vulnerable populations.
H.R. Hodges – DPCS
Though originally from Florida, H.R. spent her adult life in New Haven, Connecticut where she completed an undergraduate degree and a master’s degree at Yale, both of which focused on post-violence literature and collective resilience practices. Her dual academic pursuits — engaging with culturally diverse narratives in the classroom, while also conducting trauma and mental health intakes through her role as a clinical staff member in a neuroscience research lab — shaped her belief in the primacy of cultural roles and values in shaping effective interventions. She is particularly interested in interventions that bolster locally available resources that already contribute to collective and individual health, especially practices that boost the ecological wellbeing of children and families. In the long term, she hopes to partner with communities of diverse cultural backgrounds to design more effective and culturally appropriate trauma treatments.
Finola Kane-Grade – DPCS
Finola earned a BA in Psychology and Music Performance – Flute from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2016. Her research interests include adolescents and youth, developmental neuroscience, families and parenting, hormones and behavior, prevention/intervention, resilience, social and emotional development, and stress and maltreatment.
Jacob Kunkel – Developmental Science
Jacob’s primary area of interest is the association between psychosocial factors, namely caregiver-child relationships, and physical and cognitive health in adulthood. Jacob earned a BA in Psychology & Biology from Augustana University in 2017 and has been working with Glenn Roisman and the Minnesota Twin Registry since 2018. He is also broadly interested in genetics and epigenetics, older adulthood, relationships, resilience, and stress and maltreatment.
Kayla Nelson – DPCS
Kayla’s primary area of interest is understanding the role of risk and protective factors in the etiology and maintenance of psychopathology, with a focus on how lifetime experiences and early parenting behaviors affect adolescent well-being. She worked with Dr. Ann Masten’s Project Competence Research on Risk and Resilience Lab at the Institute of Child Development as Project Coordinator prior to beginning her graduate program. She currently works with both Dr. Sylia Wilson and Dr. Ann Masten to explore these interests further.
Emily Padrutt – DPCS
Emily is working with Dr. Sylia Wilson in the Fam CAN Lab. She is interested in understanding pathways of risk in the intergenerational transmission of depression, with a focus on the development of self- and emotion-regulation in infancy and early childhood.
Sarah Pan – Developmental Science
Sarah earned BAs in psychology and neuroscience from the University of Chicago in 2020, where she worked with Dr. Amanda Woodward to study the relationship between praise and object learning in toddlers. Her broad interests are children’s cognitive development and how to best promote and understand learning, particularly in the relationship between parents and children. She currently works with Dr. Michèle Mazzocco to investigate these topics with regards to numerical cognition and math achievement.
Tori Simenec – DPCS
Before beginning her graduate studies, Tori worked as a research assistant in The Gunnar Laboratory for Developmental Psychobiology researching the impact of early adversity on the developing stress response system. Her research interests include prevention and intervention programs designed to increase positive outcomes and reduce the risk for psychopathologies in underrepresented populations. Specifically, she is interested in increasing the relevance and engagement of empirical programs for families that experience high levels of stress including forced migration, trauma or discrimination through cultural adaptation and innovative dissemination strategies to reach communities. She is currently engaged in research with both Dr. Abigail Gewirtz and Dr. Gail Ferguson investigating the cultural adaptation of digital interventions.
Sally Stoyell – Developmental Science
Sally is interested in studying the structural and physiological processes behind infant memory and cognitive development in both typically and atypically developing populations. She received her BS from Cornell University where she did her undergraduate thesis in a lab looking at EEG and behavioral measures of infant memory as related to iron status. Most recently she worked at Massachusetts General Hospital in the Chu Lab studying the brain processes and structure behind seizures and cognitive dysfunction in infantile and childhood epilepsies.
