I am a NICHD F32 Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford’s Center on Early Childhood, mentored by Drs. Phil Fisher, Jelena Obradović, and Willem Frankenhuis. I completed my PhD in developmental psychology from University of Minnesota’s Institute of Child Development in 2023, working with Drs. Dan Berry and Katie Thomas. Prior to my doctoral training, I received a B.S. in cognitive science from UCSD, an M.A. in psychology from Columbia University, and worked for several years as a lab manager at NYU.

I study the strategic ways children navigate the complexities of growing up in poverty, particularly how these experiences influence their self-regulation and cognitive skills. My work seeks to reveal these previously overlooked developmental adaptations by asking: How do poverty-related experiences help children solve challenges and adapt to their circumstances? How can these adaptive strengths be applied in other contexts, like school? 

This research is motivated by my own experiences growing up below the poverty line, where I witnessed the daily stressors and opportunities that shape how children learn from and engage with their environments. I aim to humanize these complex experiences and understand their association with developing cognitive skills, learned strategies, and regulatory capacities. To do this, I draw upon a range of methods including psychometric, causal inference, and time-series models to capture the richness of children’s lived experiences over time. I apply computational models from cognitive science and dynamic systems frameworks to understand how adaptive self-regulation unfolds across behavioral, cognitive, and physiological levels. 

Ultimately, my goal is to inform and enhance early childhood policies and programs that support children’s strengths while addressing their challenges. My work contributes to broader efforts to improve the scientific and societal impact of strength-based approaches to studying adversity (see cera-network.com).