Research Opportunities

Child Maltreatment Solutions Network Faculty and their Research Interests

Feel free to contact the faculty member directly with questions

Christian M. Connell, Ph.D.  cconnell@psu.edu

Human Development and Family Studies

• Focus on the experiences and outcomes of youth who have been maltreated, involved in the child welfare system, or other child-serving systems
• Examine risk and protective processes that impact child wellbeing following incidents of maltreatment, as well as effectiveness of community-based models to prevent/treat the negative effects of maltreatment and other traumatic experiences

Sarah Font, Ph.D.  saf252@psu.edu

Department of Sociology and Criminology

• Study the processes and outcomes of the child protection and foster care systems, with particular attention to addressing longstanding problems of causal inference and measurement
• Emphasize the importance of understanding whether and how the policy priorities of the child protection and foster care system serve the best interests of at-risk children and youth

Yo Jackson, Ph.D., ABPP yuj160@psu.edu

Department of Psychology

• Studies protective factors that contribute to positive outcomes for youth exposed to trauma, the development of interventions for children exposed to trauma, and the intergenerational transmission of trauma

Erika Lunkenheimer, Ph.D. ezl5238@psu.edu

Department of Psychology

• Study parent-child relationships as risk and protective factors for child maltreatment
• Address how dynamic regulatory processes in the family (emotional, behavioral, and biological) relate to child maltreatment risk, parent stress and mental health problems, and child self-regulation outcomes

Sheridan Miyamoto, Ph.D. sjm6101@psu.edu

College of Nursing

• Focus on the implementation and evaluation of telehealth and innovative models of care to enhance access to high-quality forensic sexual assault care in underserved communities and to support, retain, and grow a well-trained forensic nurse workforce
• Improve the identification and targeted prevention of child welfare-involved youth at greatest risk of sexual exploitation (trafficking)

Carlomagno Panlilio, Ph.D. ccp15@psu.edu

Educational Psychology, Counseling, and Special Education

• Focus on understanding mechanisms that link early maltreatment experiences and later academic outcomes. Specifically looking at the role of self-regulation and how children’s development of self-regulation may be influenced by contextual factors such as parent-child and student-teacher relationships
• Develop school-based interventions that aim to improve student-teacher relationships through trauma-sensitive practices

Hannah Schreier, Ph.D. hannah.schreier@psu.edu

Biobehavioral Health

• Explore early life experiences, especially within the family context and with respect to socioeconomic disparities, come to influence youth health
• Focus on how these early experiences shape inflammatory and metabolic markers of common chronic diseases

Idan Shalev, Ph.D. ius14@psu.edu

Biobehavioral Health

• Identify mechanisms underpinning the biological embedding of stress, or ‘how stress gets under the skin’, and its effect on health and aging. - Assess changes in telomere length, an indicator of cellular aging, and other biomarkers of aging across the life course
• The goal is to pinpoint behavioral and molecular targets for public health observation and clinical treatments aimed at mitigating the consequences of stress on health and aging