Research

The high prevalence of untreated emotional and behavioral disorders among school-age children is the driving force behind my research goals. Aiming to shrink the gap between youth who need mental health services and those who receive them, my primary program of research focuses on the development and implementation of school-based therapeutic interventions to promote psychological wellbeing. Schools are ideally situated to provide low- or no-cost behavioral health services to students who are unlikely to access them in specialty clinics. However, there is a need for feasible, acceptable, and appropriate, and effective practices that schools can successfully implement within the context of their existing service-delivery frameworks.

School-Based Therapeutic Interventions. While at the University of Minnesota, I joined forces with various researchers, institutes, and community organizations to systematically develop, refine, and evaluate therapeutic interventions and primary prevention programs. I have assisted in all stages of research development, from conceptualization to dissemination.

• In 2016, I served as the PI of a pilot study of a school-based social-emotional program called Yoga Calm. Our study examined teachers’ procedural fidelity and student emotional and behavioral outcomes in response to a class-wide roll-out of the curriculum. These findings were analyzed in light of key stakeholders’ perceptions of the program’s feasibility, acceptability, appropriateness, and effectiveness.

• In 2017, I assisted with a randomized control trial in the department of psychiatry, which examined the feasibility and impact of Social Learning Family Therapy when added to an evidence-based curriculum for adolescents with depression.

While in graduate school, I helped write and submit five grants. Three out of five were successfully funded through the Office of Special Education Programming, the Institution for Educational Sciences, and the Institute for Translational Research in Children’s Mental Health respectively. Submitted proposals include:

• A seed grant to iteratively develop and test a culturally-responsive, school-based CBT program that blended group counseling with one-on-one support for children with anxiety.

• An IES Goal 2 project to refine and test a universal curriculum to optimize mental health outcomes in undergraduate students.

Changing Behavior and Physiology. As an applied researcher, my research agenda has been profoundly shaped by my undergraduate and post-baccalaureate research experiences in developmental psychology laboratories. Having spent four years in college investigating the interplay between stress, sleep, HPA axis regulation, and mental health, I am particularly interested in interventions that target bio-physiological mechanisms of emotion and behavior.

• In 2015, I assisted with a grant looking to evaluate whether a universal sleep curriculum implemented during health classes can improve middle school student psychological functioning.

• In 2017, I orchestrated a small RCT comparing the efficacy of four brief interventions to improve physiological regulation following a stressful task.

• In 2020, I helped analyze data from an NIH-funded pilot study examining the social validity and efficacy of a behavioral sleep intervention for adolescents with neurodevelopment disabilities.

Mobilizing Protective Systems to Promote Wellbeing. Working with professor Ann Masten on studies of resilience in homeless children and families strengthened my commitment to utilizing models of positive development. My subsequent research has predominantly focused on mobilizing protective systems, within individual children and their environments, to optimize functioning. For example:

• My colleagues and I conducted a meta-analysis on wellbeing promotion programs for K-12 educators.

• My dissertation examined how profiles of caregiver mental health influence the way that children cope with academic stressors.