Aishwarya Ganguli is currently a third-year graduate student in Biobehavioral Health (BBH). She received her B.A in Psychology with a minor in Public Health in 2019.
Her research interests include examining how early life adversities such as exposure to maltreatment, harsh parenting, or lower socio-economic status could impact life-long physiological outcomes such as inflammation or metabolic syndrome. Further, she is interested in understanding the psycho-social mechanisms, such as social support, that could explain the association between childhood maltreatment and health outcomes. Lastly, she is interested in translating her lab work (maltreatment, physiological measures, psycho-social mechanisms) to policies and community-based programs to improve the care and health outcomes for individuals exposed to childhood maltreatment. She is on the Biology and Health and Policy and Administrative Data Systems training tracks. Her primary mentor is Dr. Hannah Schreier, and her secondary mentor is Dr. Sheridan Miyamoto.
Through her T-32 training, she plans to process data looking at immune markers and metabolic markers for the Child Health Study and look at the role of social support in the association between child maltreatment and physical health outcomes. Simultaneously, she will be training in Dr. Miyamoto’s lab to learn about the Sexual Assault Forensic Examination- Telehealth (SAFE-T) program and its impact on improving care for individuals exposed to sexual assault in underserved communities.
Anneke is a 6th year doctoral student in Human Development and Family Studies at Penn State with plans to defend her doctoral dissertation in June of 2024. While on the T32, Anneke’s mentors were Drs. Chad Shenk (Prevention and Treatment), Sy-Miin Chow (Policy and Administrative Data Systems), and Erika Lunkenheimer (Developmental Processes).
Since completion of her Fellowship in 2022, Anneke has been an author on 4 published manuscripts (1 first author) titled “Child maltreatment, parent-child relationship quality, and parental monitoring in relation to adolescent behavior problems: Disaggregating between and within person effects,” “The Association of Epigenetic Age Acceleration and Depressive and Anxiety Symptom Severity among Children recently exposed to Substantiated Maltreatment,” “Contamination in observational research on child maltreatment: A conceptual and empirical review with implications for future research,” Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia Change during Trauma-Focused Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy: Results from a Randomized Controlled Feasibility Trial,” as well as a co-author on 1 book chapter titled, “Addressing Contamination Bias in Child Maltreatment Research: Innovative Methods for Enhancing Causal Estimates.” She is currently author on 4 manuscripts under review (3 first author). Finally, since completion of her fellowship she has been an author on 11 conference presentations (6 first author) titled “ “Externalizing Behaviors in Relation to Child Maltreatment: A Growth Mixture Modeling Approach,” “Mother-Child and Father-Child Affective, Behavioral, and Coregulation as Developmental Mechanisms Across Early Childhood,” “Epigenetic Age Acceleration and Risk for Depression and Anxiety following Exposure to Substantiated Child Maltreatment,” “Caregiver Child Communication Following Child Maltreatment: A Dynamic Systems Approach,” “Addressing Contamination Bias in Causal Estimates of the Effect of Child Maltreatment on Adolescent Behavior Problems,” “Associations between Child Maltreatment and Externalizing Behaviors across Childhood and Adolescence: A Cross-Lagged Panel Model,” “Validation as a Viable Intervention Target for Promoting Recovery from Early Life Adversity and Managing Chronic Pain,” “Contamination and Its Impact on Causal Estimates in Observational Research with Psychological Outcomes,” “Caregiver Validation and Invalidation in a Child Maltreatment Sample: An Observational Study, ” Propensity Score Methods to Estimate Causal Effects of Child Maltreatment after Controlling Contamination,” and “Cross-Lagged Associations between Maltreatment Exposure and Behavior Problems throughout Childhood and Adolescence.”
In August 2022, she was awarded a NRSA Individual Predoctoral Fellowship titled, “Caregiver-Child Communication Following Child Maltreatment: A Dynamic Systems Approach” through the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD; F31HD110086). In February 2023, was awarded funds from both the Douglas Research Endowment and Joachim Wohlwill Endowment through the Health and Human Development Department. In February 2024, she was awarded funds from the Douglas Research Endowment.
Dr. Mullins worked with Drs. Carlomagno Panlilio, Jennie Noll, and Sarah Font while a CMT32. She has continued her role as a post-doctorate associate at the University of Miami working under Dr. Rebecca Shearer for the IDEAS Consortium for Children. She published a paper titled “Does multidimensional self-concept mediate the relationship of childhood sexual abuse and bullying victimization on deliberate self-harm and suicidal ideation among adolescent girls” in Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal. She also published a paper titled “Identifying what works for whom: Implementation outcomes following iLookOut, a child abuse identification and referral training program” in a Journal of Clinical and Translational Science. She was part of a panel at the 2024 Conference on Research Innovations in Early Intervention titled “Trauma and early childhood: Ecological perspectives on children, contexts, and systems.” Additionally, she has two posters under review for the 2024 National Research Conference on Early Childhood titled “Neighborhood indicators and developmental and early school outcomes: A scoping review” and “Examining the role of peer interactions and classroom language environment on Spanish-English DLL children’s language development.”
Charles Alvarado is a third-year Ph.D. student and former middle school teacher in the Department of Educational Psychology, Counseling, and Special Education at Penn State. His current research centers on understanding the effects of adversity on students' attentional processing and learning outcomes from cognitive and neuroscience perspectives. As a predoctoral fellow, he is mentored by Carlomagno Panlilio and Koraly Perez-Edgar from the Developmental Processes Track, and Eric Claus from the Biology & Health Track.
With his primary mentor, Dr. Panlilio, Charles investigates the adverse effects of early childhood maltreatment on emerging and complex reading outcomes and cognitive processes over time, which has important implications to teacher practices, especially within a trauma-informed framework. Charles also works with his secondary mentor, Dr. Perez-Edgar, on her project that investigates parent-child dyads and anxiety transmission using methods in psychology and neuroscience. With their guidance, Charles aims to meaningfully engage in projects that utilize longitudinal designs to model developmental trajectories following exposure to maltreatment.
To explore the biological embedding of maltreatment on specific attentional processes, Charles is also training with Dr. Claus to understand complex neuroimaging methods and what they can reveal about neural structure, function, and connectivity differences related to childhood maltreatment.
Dr. Selin is a speech-language pathologist with a Ph.D. in Child Language from the University of Kansas. She is now a Research Scientist I (equivalent to an Assistant Professor) at Boys Town National Research Hospital in the Center for Childhood Deafness, Language, & Learning, where she directs the Language, Adversity, and Stress Lab. In addition, Claire is collaborating with scientists and practitioners from the Boys Town youth residential care to conduct implementation science and program evaluations in the on-campus school and clinics.
During the CMT32, Claire’s mentors were Yo Jackson (Psychology; Developmental Processes track), Jennie Noll (HDFS; Biology & Health track), and Eric Claus (BBH; Biology & Health track). She currently has 7 published papers (4 first authored) with three additional papers under review and many national peer-reviewed presentations. In the past year, she also presented her work on language acquisition and adversity/maltreatment in a research symposium at a competitive and prestigious child language conference—the Boston University Conference on Language Development (<20% acceptance rate). She has an NICHD R03 under review titled Intergenerational Adversity Exposure & Language Acquisition, and she is preparing an NIDCD R21 to submit in June 2024 on the psycholinguistic profiles of youth exposed to adversity.
Dr. Lee has a Ph.D. in Early Education from Oxford University and has completed her CMT32 postdoctoral fellowship with Yo Jackson (Child Clinical Psychology) and Erika Lunkenheimer (Developmental Psychology) in 2024. Since completing her CMT32, Jane has published three first authored papers. The first authored papers included Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia (RSA)Reactivity and Developmental Delay in the Preschool Years, The role of timing and amount of outdoor play in emotional dysregulation in preschool children, and Correlation between household types and characteristics and child maltreatment: A risk factor analysis using eHaengbokieum System Data. Jane is now an associate research fellow at the Korea Institute of Child Care & Education (KICCE), a national research center funded by the Korean government, dedicated to developing evidence-based policies for early childhood education and care in South Korea.
Dr. Brown finished her Fellowship in 2022 with mentors Erika Lunkenhimer, Koraly Perez-Edgar, and Nilam Ram in the Developmental Processes track and the Policy and Administrative Data track. She has worked as a Senior Analyst/Statistician at Advocates for Human Potential (AHP) in Washington DC. She has recently transitioned to a new Senior Analyst role at National Consulting Partners, where her work is focused on analyzing health and benefits data within the VA. She published one co-authored paper this year.
Dr. Palmer is an Assistant Professor at the University of Utah College of Social Work. During the T32 her mentors were Sarah Font and Jennie Noll. Since completing the T32 Lindsey published two first authored papers (submitted during the T32) and 5 co-authored papers. The first authored papers included A longitudinal analysis of concerning psychotropic medication use among adolescents in foster care and Lifetime rates and types of subsequent child protection system contact following a first report of neglect: An age stratified analysis. Most recently, Lindsey has co-authored 4 published papers in 2024 including 1 with her primary mentor, Sarah Font. Lindsey also has 4 manuscripts currently under review, 2 of which she is co-authoring with her primary mentor, Sarah Font. Lindsey also presented her work at The Society for Social Work Research conference and the International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect conference. Lindsey received the UC Berkeley Transition Aged Youth Research and Evaluation Hub grant, which she applied for during the T32. Recently she applied for the Institutes for Research on Poverty extramural grant.
Following completion of the postdoctoral fellowship, she returned to Binghamton University and is now an associate professor and Chair of the Social Work department. Dr. Shipe’s mentors in the PADS and PAT Tracks were Christian Connell (HDFS), Max Crowley (HDFS), and Jennie Noll (HDFS). Since 2023, she has 15 co-authored papers published or in-press of which she is the first author on two of those papers. At the 28th Annual Conference of the Society for Social Work and Research in Seattle, WA she organized the third annual fathers' symposia with colleagues from Arizona State University, Appalachian State University, The Ohio State University, and the University of Nevada - Las Vegas. This group aims to once again present in 2026. In addition to presenting her work, Dr. Shipe was awarded funding to pursue the efficacy of the mandated reporter training in New York State as well as revising her R21 grant for the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) focused on access to and use of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) among minority identifying foster youth.
Dr. Brown is an Assistant Professor, MSW Program at The University of Alabama. She has multiple papers published which can be found on her university page: Littleton, Tenesha – School of Social Work (ua.edu). Her research focuses on how socio-structural factors impact parenting behaviors and experiences, including the risk of contact with child protective services. Dr. Littleton also examines the role of social policy in mitigating or exacerbating the risk of child maltreatment.
While a T32, she worked with primary mentor Sarah Font in the Policy and Administrative Data Systems Track on research projects exploring disparities associated with child welfare system involvement. They are currently examining discipline disparities in school experiences among a cohort of children investigated for child maltreatment and with secondary mentor Yo Jackson in the Prevention and Treatment track exploring factors associated with resilience among youth in foster care, including spirituality and placement stability.
Dr. Herd has a Ph.D. in developmental psychology from Virginia Tech and completed her CMT32 postdoctoral fellowship with Jennie Noll (HDFS), Sarah Font (Sociology/Criminology), and Max Crowley (HDFS) in 2023. Toria has published 7 papers in the last year. She also contributed to numerous fact sheets/policy memos and served as a policy associate for the Research-to-Policy Collaboration. Toria is now a policy fellow through the Society for Research in Child Development working in the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation in the federal government. She conducts and manages research funded by the Administration of Children and Families to support the policy and programmatic needs of the Offices of Headstart, Childcare, and the Children’s Bureau.
Zhenyu (Zach) Zhang, M.S., M.A., is a fourth-year graduate student in the Clinical Psychology program at Penn State. Zach’s research interests include : 1) examining multidimensionality of child maltreatment, including developmental timing, type, duration and severity, and their unique effects on adverse outcomes, including psychopathology, risky behaviors, and health outcomes; 2) elucidating biological mechanisms (e.g., neuroendocrine markers and biological aging) linking child maltreatment and adverse outcomes; 3) examining potential sex differences in the biological processes following child maltreatment; and 4) translating findings we learn from basic research to inform, develop, and evaluate timely, accessible and cost-effective prevention and treatment programs for maltreatment populations.
Zach is on the Prevention and Treatment and Developmental Processes training tracks. His primary mentor is Dr. Chad Shenk, and his secondary and tertiary mentors are Drs. Lorah Dorn, and Chris Engeland respectively. Under the mentorship of Dr. Shenk, Zach is working on the Child Health Study to identify the potential differential impact of those dimensions on later health outcomes. He is also working on Dr. Shenk’s, Life Events and Reactions Study (LEARS), and, Epigenetic and Cognitive Aging Project (eCAP), to examine genetic and epigenetic markers linking child maltreatment and later adverse health. Zach is working with Dr. Dorn to study how puberty as a sensitive period can shape developmental trajectories of children exposed to maltreatment. Additionally, Zach is working with Dr. Engeland to observe the assaying of various sex and stress-related hormones, participate in the handling of specimens, and study the links between various biomarkers.
