School of Education

I am an Assistant Professor in the Counseling & Educational Psychology department with an appointment in Human Development. I received my Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Virginia Commonwealth University and subsequently completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Indiana University's Center for Research on Race and Ethnicity in Society.

I am an adolescent researcher with a focuses on understanding the emotional development of Black youth, examining how Black youth’s social context (family, friends, school) influence emotion expression and emotion regulation, as well as the role emotion expression and emotion regulation play in Black youth’s decisions to engage in both risk-related and prosocial behaviors. My research seeks to expand our foundational knowledge of adolescent emotional development and situate that knowledge within a sociocultural context for Black youth.

I use a multi-method approach to answer my research questions including; self-reported behaviors, qualitative interviews, and physiological and biological responses to stress within social contexts.

Much of my research is informed by my clinical training as a marriage and family therapist, and experiences as a multi-systemic therapist for adolescents and their families.