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Eileen Merritt Ph.D. 2012 |
Eileen G. Merritt is a Postdoctoral researcher studying mathematics and science classrooms through grants to The Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning (CASTL) and the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia. She received a B.A.in elementary education from the College of William and Mary and a M. Ed. in Science Education from the University of Virginia. Prior to attending UVA, she was a fourth grade teacher in Albemarle County for many years, and a middle school teacher in Chesapeake, Virginia. During her doctoral program, Merritt studied interventions designed to improve mathematics and science teaching and learning in elementary classrooms. Her dissertation work examined classroom factors that contribute to social and academic outcomes for elementary children. “I am interested in learning about interventions that make a difference for teachers and students in elementary schools. The interdisciplinary nature of the program appealed to me because I am able to study interventions like Responsive Classroom. RC strives to improve both the socio-emotional climate in the classroom and the learning environment. Learning from the leaders in our field about how to conduct educational research is a privilege, and there are so many challenges and opportunities provided to me through this program.” |
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Sophie Aiyer Ph.D. 2011 |
Sophie Aiyer is a Youth Violence Prevention Center Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan. Sophie’s research interests and experiences share a common goal of understanding the causes and consequences of delinquency and mental health problems in at-risk child and adolescent populations. Her primary research interests are in the etiology, development, and prevention of early aggression, antisocial behavior, delinquency, and youth violence, with a focus on understanding how individual, family, peer, and neighborhood process contribute to risk for juvenile delinquency. Sophie is also interested in learning how to effectively design and shape public health programs and interventions in order to improve developmental outcomes for disadvantaged youth. Prior to attending UVA, Sophie completed her Master of Health Science at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. During her doctoral studies at UVA, Sophie focused on how multiple ecological settings influence trajectories of antisocial behavior and also on understanding the desistance process. She credits the interdisciplinary nature of the RPES Program with giving her the opportunity to pursue her research interests spanning across the fields of public health, psychology, and education. "I chose the program because of its interdisciplinary nature. The faculty members have diverse interests, which allows students to become involved in a range of research opportunities." |
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Tim Curby Ph.D. 2008 |
Timothy W. Curby, PhD, is an assistant professor of applied developmental psychology at George Mason University. Tim’s work focuses on early childhood classroom experiences and applying advanced statistical models to school-based research. Specifically, he focuses on the interactions that teachers have with children as a mechanism for children’s development. Tim is also interested in measurement of classrooms and development of observational measures of the classroom environment. While at Curry, Tim was enrolled in the Educational Psychology PhD program. His first two years, he was a teaching assistant for Drs. Richards and Strang in their Child Development course. For his last two years, he was a fellow in the IES-funded pre-doctoral training program in education sciences. He commented that during that time, he had intensive school-based research training by Sara E. Rimm-Kaufman and Robert Pianta and fruitful research experiences in the Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning. |
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Lauren Decker Ph.D. 2008 |
Lauren Decker earned a M.Ed. in Educational Psychology prior to joining the RPES/Ed psych program. She says that through this program, her interdisciplinary interests were cultivated and explored. Coming from an undergraduate experience in developmental psychology, she states, "I began to question the silos that separated psychological and sociological explorations. I was able to begin exploring multi contextual questions with the opportunity to develop a specialization outside of the education school, and appreciated as well, the instruction and rigor of the statistical focus of the RPES/Ed Psych program. Lauren is presently a Researcher at Edvance Research, Inc. in San Antonio, Texas. She is currently working on a performance management solution funded by a private foundation. In addition, she is also involved in multiple projects under the contract for the REL Southwest. REL Southwest is one of ten educational laboratories in the Regional Educational Laboratory Program (REL Program), under the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) of the U.S. Department of Education and serves the states of Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas. |
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Anne Henry Cash Ph.D. |
Anne Henry Cash is a postdoctoral fellow in the Children's Mental Health Services Training Program in the Bloomberg School of Public Health, at Johns Hopkins University. She is interested in the strengths and challenges of using observational techniques to measure and improve the quality of interactions between teachers and students.
Thus far, her work has focused on observation as a tool in early childhood education contexts, and links between observed teacher-child interactions and children's developing language, literacy, and social skills. In her postdoctoral fellowship, she is also looking at elementary and secondary school environments to identify relationships between observed teacher-student interactions and student behavior. |
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Jeffrey Jones Ph.D. 2008 |
Jeffrey Jones is an assistant professor in the Department of Teaching, Learning, and Educational Studies at Western Michigan University. He conducts research on the social context of adolescent learning and development, and focuses on school and community-based interventions that promote youth engagement. Currently, he is studying motivation and identity in alternative education, and the development of youth purpose in social actions programs. He also collaborates on the evaluation of the Kalamazoo Promise, a universal postsecondary scholarship program. Before attending the University of Virginia, Jeffrey taught high school and coordinated a dropout prevention program in western Colorado. In pursuing graduate education, he was interested in developing research competencies and a line of applied research for students placed at risk of academic and social difficulty. He writes, "I credit the RPES/ADS program with substantive training in the prevention sciences, adolescent risk and resiliency, and the social context of education. I received rigorous methodological training in qualitative research, program evaluation, and advanced statistical modeling. I enjoyed the highly individualized and interdisciplinary nature of the program, and benefitted greatly from working with leading scholars on meaningful and engaging research. I would highly recommend this doctoral training program to motivated individuals preparing for a career in academics and educational research." |
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Carolyn Kilday Ph.D. 2010 |
Carolyn R. Kilday received her Ph.D. in Applied Developmental Science in 2010. While at U.Va., she worked on the MyTeachingPartner – Math/Science curriculum development project. Her focus is on math development in preschool-aged children and how we can support teachers to improve their math teaching. Carolyn commented that the Applied Developmental Science program gave her a chance to learn from many experts, both specifically about preschool math and about research design. Currently, Carolyn is completing a post-doctoral fellowship at SUNY-Buffalo under Drs. Doug Clements and Julie Sarama. She is the project director of the EMERGE Project, which is evaluating the effects of including a self-regulation component with a preschool math curriculum on children’s school readiness. |
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Jennifer LoCasale-Crouch Ph.D. 2007 |
Prior to attending UVA, Jennifer worked as a clinician with children and families in schools and medical settings, focusing on enhancing children’s development through effective use of supportive resources. She writes that she credits the interdisciplinary and research intensive nature of the Risk and Prevention program with deepening her understanding of different ways to study, understand, and change systems to more effectively support children’s development. Jennifer currently works as a Research Scientist at the University of Virginia in the Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning. Her research focuses on understanding and systematically enriching teacher development as an avenue to support at-risk children during early childhood. She has recently authored several articles on state-funded preK classroom quality, the importance of successful transitions for children’s development, the stability of children's experiences from preK to kindergarten and effects of consultation on teachers’ supportive interactions with children. |
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Erin Ottmar Ph.D. 2011 |
Erin received her doctorate in the Educational Psychology: Applied Developmental Science program in 2011. During her 4 years as an IES fellow, she worked closely with Drs. Sara Rimm-Kaufman and Robert Berry on the Responsive Classroom Efficacy Study. She is interested in studying the efficacy of academic, social, and emotional interventions that improve instruction and student achievement in the mathematics classroom. Her research focuses on the complex relations between mathematical knowledge for teaching, teacher self-efficacy, instructional quality, and student outcomes. Erin Ottmar is a postdoctoral research scientist in the Department of Psychology at the University of Richmond. She is currently working on an IES Goal 2 Cognition and Instruction grant to develop a middle school algebra intervention, Pushing Symbols. This intervention uses a new technology, Algebra Touch, which allows students to visually transform algebra through motion. In addition, she is mentoring undergraduate students who are interested in educational and psychological research. |
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Kathleen Rudasill Ph.D. 2006 |
Kathleen Moritz Rudasill is currently an associate professor of educational psychology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Prior to earning her Ph.D., she spent 7 years as a high school social studies teacher. At the University of Virginia's Curry School, she was an IES pre-doctoral fellow for two years. During that time, she acquired conceptual and theoretical grounding in research on classroom processes, and received rigorous training in research and statistical methods. Her research is focused on understanding how individual differences in children, particularly temperamental differences, interact with elements of classroom environment to predict children's academic and social success. |
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Lori Skibbe Ph.D. 2006 |
Lori Skibbe is an assistant professor in Human Development & Family Studies at Michigan State University. Her research focuses on individual differences in the development of literacy skills, with an emphasis on three themes: (1) children’s literacy development in the context of schools and families, (2) the long-term consequences of language impairment on emergent literacy skills, and (3) implementing and evaluating intervention programs that advance instructional techniques and educational opportunities for children at risk for reading difficulties. She is also the Director of Research for the Child Development Laboratories at MSU where she currently manages participant recruitment and data collection for the 200 children and families attending the labs at this time. Skibbe’s work has been funded by the Association for Children & Families and was awarded the 2004 Editor’s Award from the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology. Lori received her doctorate from the Risk & Prevention Program at the University of Virginia in 2006 and commented on her experience, saying "I believe that my training there provided a solid foundation from which to advance my career in academia, by allowing me to collaborate with leading scholars in the field and work on multiple research projects." |
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