Kathryne Isabella Grey

Kathryne Isabella Grey is currently a first year graduate student in the Developmental Psychology Program at the University of California , Riverside . Before coming to work in the Adversity and Adaptation Lab at UCR, Kate graduated with honors from Cal State Dominguez Hills. While at CSUDH, Kate conducted research on how different parenting and attachment styles influence teen use on My Space, correlational studies on filler words and personality perceptions, and Generation X vs. Net Generation media multitasking skills. Recently, Kate conducted research examining ethnic perceptions of the possible causes and prevention of childhood obesity.

Kate's research interests include child development in relation to trauma, abuse, deviancy, and parental relations. Kate is very excited to be working with Cynthia Moon on the Adapting to Aging Out study, where they will be examining foster youth and their aging out process in order to gain clarity into developmental processes that engender resilience in young adulthood. When Kate is not doing research, she enjoys hanging out with her family, friends, reading, hiking, running, surfing, and snowboarding.

Presentations:

Grey, K., Rosen, L., (April 2008). Perceptions of Childhood Obesity by Ethnic Groups and Amount of Media Use . Poster session presented at annual convention of the Western Psychological Association (WPA), Irvine , California .

Cynthia Maeva Moon

Cynthia Maeva Moon began her research career at the University of California , Riverside, as a freshman undergraduate student working in the Neuroscience area, and adjusted to the Social/Personality area in her sophomore year. She joined Dr. Daniel Ozer and his dedicated graduate students in their many research endeavors. In her sophomore year, Cynthia also worked with Dr. Curt Burgess to present her research on personality and religiosity at the University of California , Los Angeles Undergraduate research conference. While still working with Dr. Ozer, in her junior year, Cynthia embarked on her own research endeavor with Dr. Tracy Kahn in Biology where she conducted an independent study examining sexual attitudes, gender and personality. In her senior year, Cynthia Moon worked with the Ozer lab on two major initiatives. The first was the student employment study where they collected qualitative information regarding students work history in order to better inform their future research in this area. The second project examined independence goals and recollected childhood memories. This projected resulted in a presentation at the American Psychological Association Conference in Summer 2007.

Cynthia's experience with research initially reinforced her wide spectrum of interests. Meeting with various professionals across the nations graduate institutions helped to narrow her research slightly. Cynthia discovered that she was adamantly interested in maltreatment, mal-adaptive behavior, trauma, neglect, risk and resilience, with side interests in the populations she had previously worked with in depth, individuals with autism and downs syndrome. Upon admittance in the University of California , Riverside Developmental Psychology Graduate program, Cynthia Moon began working with Dr. Tuppett Yates.

Cynthia is the graduate student coordinating the Adapting to Aging Out study where we hope to better understand the “aging out” of foster care process, as well as the outcomes that follow that process. Finally what past interests and situation characteristics contribute to the outcome of the youth she plans to study. Cynthia is very passionate about her work in risk and resilience with the foster youth, and has ambitious hopes to help coordinate a support program and scholarship system for Foster youth attending the University of California Riverside during her time in the PhD program.

Sara Ragland

Hi, my name is Sara Ragland and I'm a first year developmental psychology graduate student in the Adversity and Adaptation lab. Before coming to UCR I received my B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania in 2003, where I worked on the Penn Resiliency Project (a cognitive training intervention aimed at preventing depression in middle school students). For the next four years I lived in Philadelphia and worked in a lab studying self-evaluative emotions in maltreated children, as well as the effects of prenatal cocaine exposure on development. While in the lab I also had the opportunity to work on projects such as the relation between self-evaluative emotions and treatment readiness in an outpatient drug treatment program, an fMRI study of attention and memory in children prenatally exposed to tobacco, and a project looking at the mediating effects of parental distress on negative outcomes in neglected children. I am currently hard at work on the ChiRRP study. My areas of interest include the relation among regulatory processes (physiological, behavioral, and emotional) and outcome in maltreated children, parental cognitions and attributions about children, and the intergenerational transmission of abuse.

PUBLICATIONS

Ragland, S., Bennett, D., Marini, V., Lewis, M. (In preparation). The Role of Parental Distress in Explaining Maladaptive Outcomes for Child Neglect.

Marini, V., Bennett, D., Ragland, S., Lewis, M. (In preparation). Reactive and Proactive Antisocial Behavior in Middle-Childhood as a Function of Prenatal Cocaine Exposure.

Ragland, S., Bennett, D., Merlino, E., Schindler, B. (In preparation). Environmental Pressures as Predictors of Treatment Readiness among Women Entering Drug Treatment.

Bennett, D., Ragland, S., Merlino, E., Schindler, B., & Lewis, M. (Under review). Self-conscious Emotions as Predictors of Treatment Readiness among Women Entering Drug Treatment.

Bennett, D., Ragland, S., Merlino, E., Schindler, B., & Lewis, M. (In preparation). Self-conscious Emotions as Predictors of Outcome among Women in Drug Treatment.

Kinnevy , S.C. , Weiner, N.A., Dichter, M., Ragland, S., & White, T. (2003). What Works Website Portal: Proven and Promising Supportive Programs and Strategies in Six Areas. Report prepared for Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation, Washington , D.C.

PRESENTATIONS

Bennett, D.S., Mohamed, F.B., Carmody, D.P., Thuahnai, S., Ragland, S., Patel, S., Faro, S., & Lewis, M. (June 2007). Emotional Reactivity in Children Prenatally Exposed to Tobacco: An fMRI study. Poster presented at Organization for Human Brain Mapping Annual Conference, Chicago , IL .

Ragland, S., Bennett, D., Merlino, E., Schindler, B. (March 2007). Environmental Pressures as Predictors of Treatment Readiness among Women Entering Drug Treatment. Poster presented at 2007 Eastern Psychological Association Conference, Philadelphia , PA.

Bennett, D., Ragland, S., Herres, J., Sullivan, M., & Lewis, M. (March 2007). The Ability of Parenting Scales to Identify Mothers with a History of Neglect: A Comparison of Three Measures. Poster presented at 2007 Eastern Psychological Association Conference, Philadelphia , PA.

Ragland, S. (October, 2006). Self-conscious Emotions as Predictors of Treatment Readiness among Women Entering Drug Treatment. Presentation given at Caring Together Drug Treatment Program, Drexel University College of Medicine, Philadelphia , PA.

Bennett, D., Ragland, S., Merlino, E., Schindler, B., & Lewis, M. (May, 2006). Self-conscious Emotions as Predictors of Treatment Readiness among Women Entering Drug Treatment. Poster presented at 18 th annual Association for Psychological Science Convention, New York , NY .

Llera, S., & Ragland, S. (March, 2004). Methods and Techniques in Longitudinal Research. Guest lecture given to graduate level research methods class at Rutgers University , Camden , NJ .