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Margot Kissinger

Lab Coordinator

Margot Kissinger graduated from the ���ϴ���, College Park, with a B.A. in Psychology in 2025. She leads a research project examining the mental health of parents of young children and is an author on the Praise Project, which investigates parental feedback during math tasks and its impact on math outcomes in preschool-aged children. Additionally, she is a social media coordinator for the laboratory. Margot's professional goal is to become a Certified Marriage and Family Therapist to help clients understand the interconnected web that strings families together.

Ria Trivedi

Lab Coordinator

Ria is a pre-med student at the ���ϴ���, majoring in Neurobiology and Physiology and Psychology, with a strong interest in child development and maternal-fetal medicine. She is particularly drawn to topics such as playfulness and injury risk in children from low socioeconomic backgrounds, as well as the impact of socioeconomic conditions on maternal and child health. Currently, she is involved in research on parental playfulness, and also enjoys exploring parenting practices across different cultural contexts.

Milagros Urioste Resta

Lab Coordinator

Jialing Wu

Jialing Wu is a first-year PhD student in the Human Development program at the ���ϴ���. She received her Bachelor of Science in Applied Psychology from The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen. Her research interests include the similarities and differences between maternal and paternal influences on children’s socioemotional and cognitive development, as well as how these relationships differ across cultural and socioeconomic groups. Besides research, Jialing enjoys traveling, photography, and baking. She loves reading papers in different coffee shops.

Claire Wray

Claire Wray is a research assistant in the Family Involvement Lab and has been an RA since Fall 2024. She received her Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from the ���ϴ���, College Park. She is a licensed clinical social worker, providing mental health care for young children ages birth to 12. Through practice, she’s observed the positive impact of research, discovering her interest in research projects on young children and their emotional development. Her research interests include children’s emotional regulation, factors during infancy that lead to dysregulation issues and the impact of the parent-child relationship on children, especially in minority families.

Julia Walz

Julia Walz has been a Research Assistant in the Family Involvement Lab since the fall of 2024. She has worked on Motor Development, Child Codes, Parental Compliance, and Calling Families projects. She is a rising junior majoring in kinesiology with a minor in disability studies. In the future, she aspires to become a physical therapist while continuing her research in motor development and biomechanics. Outside of the lab involvement, she is a Sports Medicine Intern with the ���ϴ��� Football Team, a Lead Peer Mentor with TerpsEXCEED, the Vice President of Community Service for the Kinesiology Student Organization, and an event planner for Best Buddies. She is passionate about understanding the human body's movements and finding ways to improve the lives of individuals living with disabilities.

Erandy Figueroav

Erandy earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from Arizona State University, with a minor in Family and Human Development. As a lifelong learner with a deep drive to conduct research, she also holds a Certification in Clinical Research Coordination. She is a research assistant with an interest in understanding children's cognitive, social, and physical development. Particularly intrigued by caregivers' involvement and how it shapes their achievements through cultural and ethnic differences in parenting behaviors. Through her experience in community health education, behavioral health, and extensive research, she can bridge knowledge and practice to support families in diverse communities as well as fulfill her interest in higher education.

Getzamary Solano

Getzamary is a first-generation student in her 1st year at Centre College. She is a young Latina aspiring to practice medicine, pursuing the pre-med track as a major in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Specifically, she is deeply interested in forensic pathology, as it combines the processes of crime investigation and modern medicine to support societal safety. Her experience with diverse cultures, supported by her upbringing in the melting pot of Houston, Texas, motivates her to seek out experiences to continuously learn about the values and practices of people around the globe. This immersion is sought out to better understand how to support positive, beneficial interactions with patients in her future medical career. Out of the classroom, Getzamary is deeply passionate about the visual arts and has been a part of multiple visual art exhibitions. This fuels her persistence to learn about society from various angles to continuously work towards becoming an active member of the world's creatively in the arts and sciences.

Patricia Hernandez-Beltran

Patricia Hernandez-Beltran started as a Research Assistant at the Family Involvement Lab during the Fall of 2024. She received a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from the University of California, Los Angeles. She has experience serving, teaching, mentoring, and advocating for underrepresented communities and students through education and communications. She became interested in the Lab because she wanted to explore parenting and the interactions that parents have with toddlers, as parenting is crucial during this developmental stage. During her time at the Family Involvement Lab, she has worked on coding Parent and Child interaction during toy and non-toy play, has worked with the blog team to generate ideas and prepare graphics for the @ChildandFamilyBlog on the Instagram page.

Pratiksha Das 

Pratiksha Das is a third-year undergraduate student at the ���ϴ��� majoring in Public Health Practice, with minors in Neuroscience and Human Development. Pratiksha is passionate about the intersection of medicine and civic engagement, with a particular focus on neurology and pediatric care. Her research interests include early childhood development, neurodivergence, and health equity for women and children of color. Pratiksha hopes to use her time in FIL to learn how to integrate community-based educational research with clinical practice to build a more compassionate and representative healthcare system for children. Outside of FIL, you can find Pratiksha dancing, volunteering with children, or blasting an R&B album!
 

Lily Haseltine

Lily Haseltine is an Accounting and Finance Major at the ���ϴ���'s Smith Business School. She has been working in the Lab since Spring 2025 on Transcriptions and Motor Development. She is looking forward to contributing more to these projects this summer.

Catherine Le

Catherine Le is a junior at the ���ϴ���-College Park majoring in Cell Biology and Genetics and minoring in Human Development. She's super excited to work in the Family Involvement Lab this year! After taking a class with Dr. Cabrera, she found a deep interest in the various ways low-income minority mothers and fathers can impact children's development! Outside of the lab, she enjoys exploring new places, hiking, and most definitely eating my way through the DMV area. 
 

Suhani Shah

Suhani Shah is an upcoming junior who's currently enrolled at the ���ϴ���, College Park, studying Human Development. She is excited to work with the Family Involvement Lab as a research assistant!

is an affiliate at the ���ϴ���, College of ���ϴ���. Broadly, her research investigates the role of motor activity in psychological processes, encompassing a wide range of psychological development, from perception and attention to cognition, speech, and socioemotional changes in diverse populations and cultural settings. A primary objective of her research, in collaboration with Dr. Natasha Cabrera and the lab, is to understand how experiential factors, such as adverse family and socioeconomic situations, and ethnic minorities, would mediate children's developmental outcomes. She received her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from the University of California, Berkeley. She was a recipient of the ���ϴ��� President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship. Currently, she is an assistant professor of psychology at Mount St. Mary's University.

Dr. Halil Uzun was born in 1978 in Ceyhan, Adana, Turkey. He completed his primary and secondary education in Ceyhan and received his undergraduate degree from Atatürk University, followed by a master’s degree from Inonu University. He earned his Ph.D. in Child Development and ���ϴ��� from Ankara University in February 2016, with a dissertation titled “An Examination of the Effects of a Father ���ϴ��� Program on Father-Child Relationships and the Social Skills of Preschool Children.” In 2021, Dr. Uzun was conferred the title of Associate Professor in the field of Child Development. He has served as coordinator and principal investigator in numerous national projects supported by the State Planning Organization (DPT), the Social Support Program (SODES), and local governments. Additionally, he has taken part in various capacities—including trainer, advisor, panelist, and project leader—in initiatives and academic events organized by international organizations such as UNICEF, UNHCR, and UN Women. His academic work primarily focuses on parent education and parent-child relationships, early childhood development, 21st-century childhood, childhood obesity, children’s rights and law, and child development- especially motor and language development. He actively teaches and conducts research in these areas. Since 2023, Dr. Uzun has been a faculty member in the Department of Child Development at the Faculty of Health Sciences, Tarsus University. In 2024, he was invited as a visiting scholar at the ���ϴ���, College Park, where he will engage in scientific research funded by a TÜBİTAK project.
Dr. Uzun is married and the father of twin daughters and a son.

Melanie Bunz is a PhD candidate in Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology at Ruhr University Bochum. In 2024, she was awarded a Fulbright scholarship for a four-month research stay at the ���ϴ���. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Dresden University of Technology and her Master of Science in Clinical Psychology from Ruhr University Bochum. Melanie is a licensed psychotherapist in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and is currently
undergoing additional training to obtain her license in Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy. Her research interests include the transgenerational transmission of parental mental disorders, emotion regulation and emotion socialization as mechanisms of transgenerational
transmission, and caregiver–child interactions.

Dr. Jerry West is an affiliate at the ���ϴ���, College of ���ϴ���. His research interests include school readiness, child care and early education, mothers’ and fathers’ involvement in their children’s education, and kindergarten in the U.S. He received a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in 1979 with a concentration in social psychology. Over his 30+ year career, he has designed and directed national cross-sectional studies of preschool, school-age children, and adults, and national longitudinal surveys of children’s development and learning from birth through middle childhood. He has trained hundreds of graduate students, junior and senior faculty from different disciplines on how to accurately use data from the national child development, early childhood and elementary school studies to answer key questions in child development and education. As a Senior Fellow at Mathematica Policy Research for more than 10 years, Dr. West directed the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) and other large-scale studies. Prior to joining Mathematica, he was the Director of the Early Childhood and Household Studies Program at the U.S. Department of ���ϴ���’s National Center for ���ϴ��� Statistics (NCES).

Duncan Fisher is an affiliate at the ���ϴ���, College of ���ϴ���. He has spent the last 23 years promoting change in policy, practice and culture to be more supportive of fatherhood. Throughout this time, evidence from research has been his key tool. In 2014 he set up the with Michael Lamb to report on family and child development research. Fatherhood is a strong theme on the Blog. He also reports on research on fathers and maternal & newborn health: 300 research reports on  since 2015. In UK he co-founded the Fatherhood Institute and helped lead the fatherhood debate in UK. He received an OBE from the Queen in 2008 “for services to children”. Now he is working internationally to challenge the lack of attention to fatherhood in health, child, gender and economic programmes.

Dr. Angelica Alonso is a fifth-year doctoral candidate in the Human Development program at the ���ϴ���. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from New York University and her Master of Arts in Human Development from Teachers College, Columbia University. Through her previous work as a research assistant at NYU's Center for Research on Culture, Development, and ���ϴ��� and as a research coordinator at NYU Langone Health, she became interested in the role that culture plays in shaping children’s early experiences. Her research interests include how Latino immigrant parents promote their young children’s development through everyday activities, as well as how parents’ documentation status affects parent-child interactions.

Rachel Ghosh is a fifth-year doctoral candidate in the Human Development program at the ���ϴ���. She received a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Michigan, with a minor in Community Action and Social Change. Her research interests include father-child relationships and the impacts of father involvement on children’s emotional and social development throughout the lifespan. She is also interested in interventions to promote healthy development and resilience among low-income children, and public policy work pertaining to the improved support of low-income families.

Yu (Tina) Chen is an alumnus of the Family Involvement Lab. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology and Economics from Grinnell College and her PhD in Human Development from the ���ϴ���. Before coming to UMD, Tina worked as a lab manager with Dr. Kathy Hirsh-Pasek at Temple University. Her research focuses on how parent-child interactions and home environment shape child outcomes. She is particularly interested in mothers and fathers from at-risk families and their input to and ways of interacting with their children.

is an alumnus of the Family Involvement Lab. She earned her undergraduate degree in psychology from the Universidad de Chile and received her Master of Arts degree and PhD in Human Development from the ���ϴ���. Currently, she is a research faculty at the Centro de Apego y Regulación Emocional (CARE) at the Universidad del Desarrollo in Santiago, Chile. Her research interests include the study of parent-child relationships in disadvantaged populations during the preschool years. She has focused on understanding the development of emotional competencies, executive functions, and language in children at risk and how mothers and fathers can promote optimal development in their children. She teaches courses for undergraduate and doctoral students in psychology and directs the .

 is an alumnus of the Family Involvement Lab. She received her Bachelor of Science in Psychology from The College of William and Mary, her Master of Arts in Comparitive Human Development from the University of Chicago, and her PhD in Human Development from the ���ϴ���. Dr. Karberg is a Senior Research Scientist at Child Trends. She studies parent-child relationships in fragile families (families in which the parents are not married), and how parent involvement affects early development in these families.

 is an alumnus of the Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology at the ���ϴ���, where she also completed a Certificate in Population Studies from the Maryland Population Research Center. She received her Bachelor of Science degree in Human Development and Family Studies from Pennsylvania State University and her Master of Science in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages from Fordham University. Dr. Kuhns is a research associate in the Center on Labor, Human Services, and Population at the Urban Institute. Her research focuses on child welfare and public programs that support the well-being of low-income children and families. She is also interested in using research to inform policy at the local, state, and federal level to enhance child well-being. Catherine is currently a Doris Duke Fellow.

 is an alumnus of the Family Involvement Lab. She is a Senior Social Science Research Analyst in the Administration for Children and Families’ Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE). Her portfolio includes research and evaluation projects related to child welfare and early care and education programs (Head Start and CCDF). Dr. Malin began her work at OPRE as a Society for Research in Child Development Executive Branch Policy Fellow. She holds a B.A. in Psychology from Duke University. She also holds an M.A. in Measurement, Statistics, and Evaluation and a Ph.D. in Human Development, both from the ���ϴ���, College Park.

Avery Hennigar is an alumnus of the Family Involvement Lab as of 2021. Dr. Hennigar received her PhD in human development from the ���ϴ���, where she also completed graduate certificates in Measurement, Statistics, and Evaluation, and Population Studies. She received her Bachelor of Science in Public Health, Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, and Master of Public Health from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Currently, Dr. Hennigar is a Researcher in the Children, Youth, and Families division at Mathematica. Avery's program of research focuses on parenting and parent-child relationships in early childhood, with a particular emphasis on the role of fathers and father-child relationships to investigate the unique effects fathers have on a range of children’s developmental outcomes. Her work emphasizes the role of these family processes and family relationships on children in the context of poverty and within and across ethnic minority populations.

Kelsey McKee is an alumnus of the Family Involvement Lab as of 2021. Dr. McKee received her PhD in human development from the ���ϴ���, where she also completed graduate certificates in Measurement, Statistics, and Evaluation, and Population Studies. She received her Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from Arizona State University. Her past experience includes conducting in-home intervention programs with the Arizona child welfare system. Her interests lie in how parenting interventions can promote positive parent-child relationships and help parents to support children’s early social and emotional development, particularly in low-income communities.