I am a 4th year Ph.D. Candidate at Penn State in the Human Development & Family Studies program working with Drs. Lisa Gatzke-Kopp and Elizabeth Skowron. I am interested in the intergenerational transmission of child maltreatment, and I have two lines of research that build upon one another to inform child maltreatment prevention and treatment. First, I am interested in the bioregulatory processes that transpire in parent-child interaction, and how dysregulation contributes to the risk for perpetrating maltreatment and may mediate the transmission of that risk across generations (e.g., Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia; RSA). Second, I am interested in exploring how therapy impacts these bioregulatory processes in both parents and children (e.g., Parent-Child Interaction Therapy; PCIT).
Emily received her B.A. in Psychology, Minors in Sociology and French (University of Oregon, 2019) and an M.S. in Human Development & Family Studies (Penn State, 2024).
Jianing is a fourth-year graduate student in the Developmental Psychology program at Penn State. She received her bachelor's degree in psychology from Central China Normal University, China in 2019, and her master’s degree in psychology from Beijing Normal University, China in 2022. Her research broad interests are the impact of family risks (e.g., child maltreatment) on child outcomes, physiological pathways between childhood adversity and health, and individual differences in above associations. Through the T32, she hopes to investigate the biological embedding of child maltreatment in relation to developmental psychopathology, with focuses on parent-child dynamics and multiple physiological systems.
