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
- 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
- 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
- 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)
Jennie Noll, Ph.D. jgn3@psu.edu
Human Development and Family Studies
-Bio-psycho-social impact of childhood sexual abuse across development
- Intergenerational transmission of the effects of abuse and neglect - Internet and social medial activities as risk for sex-trafficking- Biological embedding of stress and trauma
-Psychosexual development and risk for teen motherhood for maltreated youth
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
- 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
- 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
Chad Shenk, Ph.D. ces140@psu.edu
Human Development and Family Studies
- Long-term health impact of child maltreatment, the experimental methods for improving the estimation of the magnitude of this impact, and the identification of risk mechanisms leading to various forms of psychopathology
- Conduct clinical trials research on how to enhance the treatment of psychopathology following child maltreatment through the targeting and engaging of identified risk mechanisms