Graduate Students

Graduate student publications

Arner, Jennifer
Jennifer's research interest is in feminist approaches to reasoning. Her dissertation focuses on the interaction between personal epistemology and scientific disciplinary epistemology in the thinking of ninth grade girls.

Beckstead, Zachary

Begic, Sandina
Sandina studies issues related to children born of wartime rape, specifically in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Her current research explores the emotional basis of stigma attached to children born of rape. She received a B.A in German Language and Literature and a B.S. in Psychology from Boise State.

Beiswenger, Krista

Bellas, Valerie

Blair, Jonathan

Carmiol, Ana
Ana's current interest is on children's developing understanding of the mental world.  Her dissertation focuses on how preschoolers come to understand that quality of information matters for knowledge acquisition during communicative exchanges.

Cohane, Geoffrey

Cenko, Enila
Enila is in the Developmental Psychology doctoral program. Her research interests focus on language acquisition and development and the socio-cultural factors that affect this process. Her current work is on the development of verb constructions in Albanian.

Charles, Eric (post-doc)
Eric is interested in evolutionary psychology and perceptual development. His research currently focuses on the role of perceptual behavior in parent-infant interaction. Side projects include the evolution of sociality and the mathematics of measurement error and correlations.

Davidson, Tatiana

Dege, Carmen
In my current thinking I am focussing on the story, history, and philosophy of psychology as well as the institutional processes that constitute the field of psychology. In addition I am interested in deconstructive practices that lead to a constant transformation of hegemonic psychological concepts such as personality, motivation, identity, intelligence, etc.

Dege, Martin
Martin focuses on the story, history and philosophy of psychology as well as the institutional processes that constitute the field of psychology.  In addition, he is interested in deconstructive practices that lead to a constant transformation of hegemonic psychological concepts such as personality, motivation, identity, intelligence, etc.  His current research is concerned with the construction of institutionalized identities.

Dost, Ayfer
Ayfer studies self and identity development in adolescents and adults: how specific types of selves are related to cognitive and affective processes such as perspective taking and conflict resolution.

Downing, Jordan

Friendly, Rachel
Rachel is a member of Dr. Wendy Grolnick's research lab, which studies motivation in children through the lens of Self-Determination Theory.  Her research interest is around the role of expectations in children's experience of novel events, particularly negative events such as unpleasant interactions or difficult life events, like divorce.

Green, Jonathan  Jonathan's overarching research interests include adherence to masculine norms and depression in men; specifically the concept of "covert" or "masked" depression. He is currently studying the relationship between men's psychophysiology, endorsement of masculinity norms, and reported feelings of sadness.

Harp, Amanda G.
Since joining the Cordova lab at Clark University, Amanda's projects have included researching commitment structures and optimal functioning in long-term couples. While the term "flow" has been used to define optimal experience in athletics, business, and leisure, Amanda seeks to discover the role of flow in relationships.

Hart, Alex
Alex's research interests include emerging adulthood, identity development across the lifespan, globalization and media use as it pertains to emerging adults, qualitative methods. and the translation of research into public policy. He is currently working under the supervision of Jeff Arnett in the Developmental program.

Hu, Juan
Juan is interested in processes of children's early grammatical development from a developmental-functionalist perspective, in particular, early verb construction development in Mandarin Chinese and English

Kalia, Vrinda
Vrinda is interested in the development of language and literacy skills in bilingual children. For her dissertation she is examining to role of Indian children's home environment in the development of their English oral language and literacy skills.

Kurrien, Rahael

Lieberson, Rebecca

Mahoney, Caitlin
Caitlin's past research has broadly focused on the relationship between emotions and political behaviors. These projects include: Promoting a Department of Peace: An Exploration of Affective States and Political Perceptions, The Stages of Political Action: An Adaptation of Prochaska's Model of Behavioral Change, &Human Security in Communities in Costa Rica and the United States. Current research is centered on compassion and altruistic responses to distant others (as in why/how we may help those we have never met). By altering emotional experience (specifically promoting positive emotions states like 'joy'- a dialogic opposition to suffering) might we trigger different 'identities' and thus different response sets? Caitlin received her B.A. in psychology from Siena College in 2003.

Marbell, Kristine
Kristine's research interest is in the differences in parent-child interactions across cultures, the economic and social influences of a particular society on these parent-child interactions and it's implications. She's also interested in whether or not there can—or should—be an ideal parenting style that spans across cultural lines.

Meade, Amy
Amy's current area of research focuses on understanding how accepting influence, affection, attachment style, and emotion skills impact relationship satisfaction and intimacy. Amy also studies prevention of depression in couples with a focus on short-term intervention.

Morrill, Melinda
Melinda's research interests focus broadly on the interaction between couples' relationships, parenting, and child well-being.  Her recent studies have focused on examining which domains within marital satisfaction are most predictive of successful coparenting.

O’Donnell, Ellen

Ono-Krieger, Kaya
Kaya's research interests include language acquisition, cultural psychology, and positive emotion. Dissertation project: Interview study on Japanese positive emotions

Ortega, Shelby
Shelby's professional research interests include minority mental health, identity development, and adult attachment in romantic relationships. One of her personal objectives is to have both her clinical and research work reflect her commitment to social justice.

Phillips, Rebekah
Rebekah received her B.A. in Psychology from Wheaton College, IL. She is currently completing her dissertation in Social, Evolutionary and Cultural Psychology while working as a visiting instructor at the College of the Holy Cross.  Her current research utilizes Social Representation Theory to analyze the historical and personal narratives of Rwandan genocide orphans.

Pollastri, Alisha
Alisha's general research interest is in how societal norms affect the social and emotional functioning of urban, low-income youth. She is currently in the planning stages of her dissertation, which is to be on the ways in which conformity to the expectation of emotional control in urban youth can be both protective and detrimental for social and emotional well-being.

Price, Carrie

Richardson, Hannah
Hannah is interested in researching family building and gay/lesbian psychology.

Sarmiento, Ingrid
Ingrid's interests include multicultural mental health, mental health disparities, family functioning and depression.

Sauck, Christine
Christine is currently conducting her dissertation study on Brazilian immigrant families living in Central Massachusetts. The aim of her exploratory investigation is to document the practical and psychological challenges that Brazilian couples face as they build their lives away from their homeland.

Solomon, Rebecca

Sonmez, Doga
Doga is interested in the relationship between culture and the developing mind. She has been asking questions related to symbolic and conceptual development. Her most recent project was on the number concept and the use of numerals in preschool children. She received her B.A. in psychology from Middle East Technical University in Turkey.

Sparks, Alison
Alison focuses on the social origins of cognitive development. Her dissertation looks specifically at language and literacy development in families from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

Srivastava, Smita
Smita studies language development from a developmental-functionalist approach. Her main area of research is Hindi-speaking children's development of verb usage and the role of input in it.

Syzdek, Matthew
Matthew's overarching research interests are in gender, class, mental health, and social justice. Presently, he is investigating how masculine gender role socialization is associated with cognitive and behavioral vulnerabilities to depression and anxiety.

Timothy, Boyd
Boyd conducts research on individual differences in the construction and experience of both emotional and non-emotional feelings, with an emphasis on the physiological component of feeling. Current projects include studying differences in the relationship between physiological responses and self-report of emotion, patterns of autonomic nervous system activity during emotional experience, the effect of watching "hot" or "cold" movies on actual preferred ambient temperature, tolerance of thermal pain, the effect of smiling on one's self-esteem, and the effect of mood on thinking strategies.

Toise, Stephanie
Stephanie is interested in how individuals create health behavior change. More specifically, she is interested in the relationship of psychology and complementary and alternative medicine to specific health behavior changes with regard to self-perception, concepts of health/illness, and the relationship of the body to the mind in the healing process.

Torres, Sandra

Twose, Gabriel
Gabe received his B.A. in psychology from the College of William and Mary. He has since worked at the Women’s Programs Office of the American Psychological Association, focusing on task forces on mental health and abortion, the sexualization of girls, gender identity, and socioeconomic status. Additionally, he has worked with Psychologists for Social Responsibility and the Johannesburg-based Center for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation on their International Journal of Transitional Justice. His current research interests include transitional justice mechanisms and reconciliation, particularly in post-Apartheid South Africa

Wachs, Karen
Her most recent research focused on how attitudes and behaviors associated with mindfulness-attention to the present moment as cultivated through meditation-may improve satisfaction in relationships. She is currently working on a project which examines how one's beliefs about anger are related to conflict style in intimate relationships, and furthermore how judgments about the relationship may also be related to those beliefs.

Whorley, Mysha
Mysha is interested in men's mental health and developing interventions that make it easier for men to talk about psychological distress with close friends and family members. Her dissertation tests a Pennebaker-style writing intervention for preventing depressive symptoms (and potentially increasing disclosure) in recently unemployed men.

Zack, Rachel
Rachel researches the utilization of mental health services among Latino men and women. She hopes to identify some of the components of positive help-seeking and help-receiving experiences within this population, in order to maximize their access to appropriate mental health care.