RESEARCH INTERESTS

I am passionate about using research as a tool to inform social policy decisions and, ideally, better the lives of children and families in need. 

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My research focuses on children's two earliest and most important developmental contexts: the home environment and early care and education settings. I study how each of these contexts independently and jointly influence children's early academic and behavioral outcomes. To that end, my dissertation work explored whether Head Start can promote positive parenting behaviors in the home (such as increased cognitive stimulation and decreased use of harsh punishment), the extent to which individual Head Start programs vary in their impacts on parenting, and program and family characteristics that might explain why some programs have stronger impacts on parents than others.

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My work focuses exclusively on exploring the development of children who experience one or more factors associated with risks to healthy development. Risk factors represented in my work include low socioeconomic status, immigrant parents, strained maternal mental health, and early biological vulnerabilities such as difficult temperament and low birthweight.