Research Projects

Research Projects Open for Recruitment

5 year NICHD funded descriptive longitudinal study
Examining stress, coping, and social connectivity and their health correlates in families with Huntington’s Disease and from the community.
Data collection and recruitment ongoing

Examining stress, inflammation, and executive functioning in adults with Huntington’s Disease and from the community.
Data collection and recruitment ongoing

Examining how parents communicate with their children about threats to school safety, how parents regulate their own emotions during these difficult conversations with their children, and how parents’ communication and emotions related to threats to school safety are related to children’s emotional and behavioral functioning
Data collection and recruitment ongoing

Accelerated longitudinal design
Examining the long-term effects of PBT diagnosis and treatment on neurocognition and how neurocognitive deficits translate to other areas of academic performance, emotional regulation, and social functioning
Data collection and recruitment ongoing

Multisite long-term survivorship study of young cancer survivors
Comparing the long-term psychosocial adjustment of YS to matched peers and identify group differences in social cognition and peer interactions that may predict poor adjustment
Identifying specific social cognitive and peer interaction factors that account for psychosocial adjustment in YS
Identifying environmental resources that protect psychosocial adjustment in young survivors
Data collection and recruitment ongoing

Adverse Childhood Experiences, Adolescent and Caregiver Emotion Regulation, and Adolescent Physical and Mental Health.
Goal is to improve programs and interventions for children who have experienced maltreatment and their caregivers
- testing novel laboratory methodology to measure adolescent and caregiver emotion regulation.
- Examining physiological correlates, adolescent emotion regulation, mental and physical health difficulties, caregiver practices, and exposure to adverse childhood events.
- Examining novel associations between adolescents’ and caregivers’ emotions and physiological responses during a face-to-face lab interaction.
Research stage: data analyses only

Program development to build resilience in families and patients with Huntington’s Disease
Research Stage: Data collection pending; no longer open for recruitment

Family Group Cognitive Behavioral (FGCB) Preventive Intervention
3 Components:
- Educate families about depression, stress & effects on families
- Teach parenting skills (warmth and structure)
- Teach coping skills to adolescents (acceptance, cognitive reappraisal/positive thinking, distraction)

Examining sources of stress related to race, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and understanding the impact on physical & mental health
Examining how students cope with these stressors

Other pages regarding our past and current projects are in progress.