People

Principal Investigator, Lisa Gatzke-Kopp, Ph.D.

Lisa is a Professor of Human Development and Family Studies. She is interested in the developmental neuroscience of psychopathology, with a particular focus on how children develop behavior problems such as aggression, hyperactivity, and substance abuse. Research has shown that such problems likely evolve when innate vulnerability interacts with environmental stressors. Understanding the neurobiological dysfunction that contributes to this vulnerability informs the identification of experiential and environmental factors that exacerbate or ameliorate risk. Identification of these factors positions researchers, and eventually policy makers, to implement changes in the environment that may alter these trajectories and improve developmental outcomes.
Lisa's faculty webpage.

Postdoctoral Researchers

Ty Lees, Ph.D.
Ty is a Postdoctoral Scholar housed in the Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center working on the NICHD funded Family Life Project. His research interests are currently focused on examining the development of an individual’s capability to self-monitor, with a particular focus on decision-making and performance monitoring processes and how these processes interact to form cognitive systems. He is also interested in how the development of this system may be influenced or moderated by other individual level factors including psychopathology, motivation, emotion regulation, etc.
Current CV
Twitter: @Ty_Lees
ORCiD: 0000-0002-7321-2704
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=86yEJmAAAAAJ&hl
Website: https://www.ty-lees.com

Current Graduate Students

Cassidy Fry
Cassidy is a fourth-year graduate student in Human Development and Family Studies pursing a dual-title in Social Behavioral Neuroscience. She is interested in the interplay between social functioning and psychopathology, with a particular interest in the psychophysiological mechanisms that underlie socio-emotional development across childhood and adolescence.

Sarah Terrell
Sarah is interested in emotional development and risk for psychopathology, particularly antisocial and violent behavior, across the lifespan. She is interested in applying behavioral neuroscience techniques and person-centered statistical analyses to address questions of interest. Ultimately, she hopes this area of research can inform prevention science and individualized interventions.
Curriculum Vitae

Google Scholar Page

               Danielle Rice
              Dani is a second-year graduate student in the Human Development and Family Studies Ph.D.
              program. She is interested in social-emotional and behavioral development in childhood, and how
              physiological processes relate to behavior. She’s also interested in applying knowledge of these processes
              to preventive interventions for children at-risk of developing behavior problems.

Current Undergraduate Research Assistants

We aren't currently recruiting undergraduate research assistants but we welcome you to check back in future semesters!

Postdoctoral Alumni

Yolanda Murphy, Ph.D.
Yolanda completed a post-doc in Human Development and Family Studies in the lab from 2018-2020. She is currently a Data Scientist for program evaluation at the Penn State Office of Student Affairs.

Graduate Alumni

Dr. Xutong Zhang completed her doctoral degree in Human Development and Family Studies in 2021. Her research focuses on the role of parental self-regulation in scaffolding children's regulatory development. She is currently completing a postdoctoral fellowship at McMaster University.

Dr. Patrick Ryan completed his Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Studies in 2021. His work focused on how respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) responds to cognitive challenges.

Dr. Róisín White completed her PhD in Human Development and Family Studies in 2019. Her research focused on how biological factors (genetic, physiological, neurological) interact with environmental factors (particularly early life stress) to influence decision-making and behavior later in development. She is also interested in investigating how individual differences in reward processing, cost estimation and risk assessment contribute to the development of both internalizing and substance use disorders. Róisín is currently a Biostatistician at Novartis, Ireland.

Dr. Kristine Creavey completed her PhD in Human Development and Family Studies in 2018. Her research focused on the development of social, emotional, and behavioral well-being in children living in adverse environments. She is particularly interested in how the parent-child relationship and parenting practices within an environment of risk contribute to child development. She is currently a policy analyst at Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago.

Dr. Cynthia Willner completed her PhD in the Human Development and Family Studies in 2016. Her research focused on understanding how individual differences in neurophysiological functioning influence children’s developing self-regulation and emotional-behavioral symptoms. After graduating she held a position as an Associate Research Scientist at the Yale Child Study Center. She is currently a Senior Research Associate at the Connecticut Data Collaborative.

Dave DuPuis completed his PhD in Neuroscience in 2013. His dissertation examined the decomposition of the event-related negativity (ERN) potential into power and frequency components to examine how neural systems involved in error processing changed across development in children ages 5-10. He is currently Data Scientist at Meta.

Dr. Christine Fortunato completed her PhD in Human Development and Family Studies in 2012. Upon graduating she complete a policy fellowship through the Society of Research in Child Development. She is currently the Team Leader for Child Welfare Research at the Division of Child and Family Development at within the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children & Families.

Undergraduate Research Assistant Alumni

We have worked with so many talented undergraduates from a wide range of majors and career goals. If you worked in the lab and we don't have you listed here let us know! We would always love to hear what exciting things you are up to these days.

Maureen Gagliardi (2008) Psychology
Vaia Pentas (2008)Psychology
Katelyn Holmes (2008) Human Development and Family Studies
Albert Mazin (2009) Biobehavioral Health
Sarah Green (2009) Biobehavioral Health with a minor in Human Development and Family Studies
Amanda Maples (2009) Human Development and Family Studies
Eric Stene (2009) Biobehavioral Health
Theresa McKim (2010) Biobehavioral Health with Honors in Human Development and Family Studies
Kelly Guttman (2010) Biobehavioral Health
Carrier Pernesky (2010) Psychology and Human Development and Family Studies with a minor in Biology
Phumelele Makoni (2010) Communication Sciences and Disorders with a minor in Psychology
Theodore Molnar (2010) Biobehavioral Health with Honors in Human Development and Family Studies
Rachael Kane (2011) Biobehavioral Health with a minor in African Studies (2011)
Panteleimon Mikroudis (2011) Biology
Brenden Peck (2011) Toxicology
Kaitlyn Tobash (2011) Biology with Honors
Shannon O'Neil (2011) Human Development and Family Studies with Honors
Diana Nora (2011) Human Development and Family Studies
Carol Good (2011) Human Development and Family Studies
Julia Vadas (2012) Human Development and Family Studies
Sarah Hefner (2011) Biobehavioral Health
Jennifer Valdivia (2012) Biobehavioral Health
Leah Kratz (2012) Psychology
Rebecca Goodyear (2012) Human Development and Family Studies
Elena Cantorna (2015) Psychology
Katie Adams (2016) Psychology
Kayley Moyer (2016) Pre-medicine with a a minor in Human Development and Family Studies
Sarah Foster (2017) Human Development and Family Studies with a minor in Psychology
Jada Mapp (2018) Biology with a minor in Psychology
Meghan Seitz (2018) Psychology with a minor in Human Development and Family Studies
Ruth Warren (2018) Biobehavioral Health with a minor in Neuroscience and Biology
Natalie Cappelli (2020) Biology with Honors in Human Development and Family Studies
Emma Brown (2018) Rehabilitation and Human Service with a minor in Kinesiology

Students listed in bold completed and honors thesis in the lab