Our Students

Caroline Botvin is a PhD Candidate in Developmental Psychology mentored by Dr. Tyler Watts. Her research explores the potential for early childhood interventions to produce compounding benefits across various domains of development. Caroline has primarily focused on the short- and longer-term effects of early childhood programs on children’s cognitive, social-emotional, and behavioral outcomes. Much of her work examines publicly-funded initiatives designed to foster the development of children experiencing poverty.

Prior to coming to TC, Caroline worked as a Senior Research Coordinator at National Health Promotions Associates. There, she developed intervention materials and coordinated research activities for several NIH-funded projects designed to attenuate various risk behaviors among adolescents.

Haleigh is a doctoral student working under Drs. Sonya Troller-Renfree and Kimberly Noble. She is interested in studying how early-life adversity becomes biologically embedded in the developing brain, as measured by electroencephalography (EEG). Haleigh is trained in data collection for a host of physiological measures (e.g., EEG, RSA, cortisol, DNA) and is dedicated to working with diverse global populations. Through her research, Haleigh is interested in examining how inflammatory markers, fetal programming, and mother-child synchronicity can further elucidate how adversity impacts child brain development. Haleigh has worked under Dr. Catherine Monk at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, and previously as an undergraduate research assistant in three psychology laboratories (clinical, school, neuropsychology) to support her thesis, in authoring and disseminating a book on improving child health outcomes.

As a doctoral student under the mentorship of Dr. Sonya Troller-Renfree, my research revolves around the associations between early adversity, neurodevelopment, and school readiness. I am particularly interested in examining environmental factors that could be targeted through policy interventions. I am experienced with the collection and processing of physiological markers (e.g., EEG, RSA, and cortisol) and analyzing data in SPSS and R. I gained work experience as a research coordinator under Drs. Kristin Buss and Koraly Perez-Edgar at Penn State University, and I volunteered as an undergraduate research assistant with Dr. Rebecca Brooker while I studied at Texas A&M University.

Emma Hart is a PhD candidate in Developmental Psychology mentored by Drs. Tyler Watts and Kimberly Noble. Her doctoral research is supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.

Emma’s research examines the role that early skills and contexts play in shaping later development. Towards these ends, she studies the longitudinal effects of interventions that are designed to experimentally change children’s skills and contexts. Her work has primarily focused on programs designed to support children experiencing poverty.

Through her research, Emma strives to shape policymaker investments in programs that are most likely to promote equity, while also strengthening and refining theories of fundamental developmental phenomena. She approaches this work with advanced statistical techniques and an interdisciplinary lens cultivated through her training at TC.

You can find more on her work at emmarosehart.com.

Mindy is a third year PhD student mentored by Tyler Watts and Kimberly Noble. Her research examines the long-term impacts of educational interventions and asks what features of interventions are most predictive of such long-term impacts. Mindy is also interested in the impacts of early childhood education on parents' earnings and educational attainment.

Mindy is currently a research fellow with the Minnesota Department of Education working on their longitudinal data system. In this role, she examines what government programs mothers access and how use of such programs is associated with mothers' returns to education and the workforce.

Prior to beginning her doctoral studies, Mindy was a Research Coordinator at the Brazelton Touchpoints Center where she supported program and policy evaluations focused on child and family education and health.

Ji Young (Christie) is a PhD student in the Developmental Psychology program, working under Dr. Sonya Troller-Renfree. Her research interests include, but are not limited to, understanding how poverty and early childhood stress impact children’s neurodevelopment and socioemotional well-being. She is experienced in data collection and processing of physiological markers, such as EEG and cortisol.
Ji Young earned both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea, where she worked under Dr. Ki-Hak Lee in the School and Counseling Lab. She was awarded a Study Abroad Scholarship from the Korean Government to pursue her PhD.

Jessica is a 5th year doctoral student mentored by Dr. Kimberly Noble and Dr. Tyler Watts. Her research examines the effects of poverty and maternal stress on developmental outcomes across the lifespan, and the ability of early life interventions to ameliorate those effects. Jessica is particularly interested in biological mechanisms of early life adversity to explain disparities in health and behavior, leveraging techniques such as EEG, cortisol, and epigenetics.

Prior to coming to TC, Jessica worked as a Project Coordinator at the Bates Social Development Lab at Indiana University. She also worked as a Research Coordinator for ParentCorps at NYU, a large-scale socioemotional intervention for under-resourced preschools across NYC. In 2024, she received the prestigious NRSA F31 from NICHD to fund her dissertation research, which will examine the associations between family SES and maternal stress with epigenetic aging and cognitive/behavioral outcomes across early childhood.