Megan Zinobile
Megan joined the lab as a project coordinator for the Healthy Brain and Child Development National Consortium to better understand healthy brain development. Megan’s previous role as a coordinator in Dr. Shalev’s lab in the Department of Biobehavioral Health at Penn State involved working on multiple research studies specifically studying telomeres and the effects of stress on health and aging. Megan’s career began as a child and family therapist in the clinical mental health setting after obtaining her Master of Social Work degree at the University of Pittsburgh and a B.A. in Clinical Psychology from Lock Haven University. This experience, along with her interest in child development including long term effects of early life stress and the development of social, emotional and behavioral well-being of children living in adverse environments led her to pursue the CAT Lab and specifically the HBCD project.
✉ muz144@psu.edu
Gillian Smoody
Gillian joined the CAT Lab as a research assistant and study navigator for the HBCD project in 2023. She earned her B.A in Psychology and Spanish with a concentration in Psychological Research from Gonzaga University. Prior to joining the lab, she worked at Washington State University’s College of Medicine studying intervention strategies for substance use disorder, as well as in the Social Emotions, Relationships, and Health Lab at Gonzaga University studying mechanisms of social support. Gillian is interested in the interplay between environmental exposures, stressful life events, and social support networks, with a focus in how they influence child development and risk for psychopathology.
✉ gvs5607@psu.edu
Kimberly Labra-Franco
Kimberly joined the CAT Lab as a research assistant for the Parent-to-Child Anxiety Transmission (P-CAT) Project in January 2024. She earned her B.A in Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prio to joining the CAT lab, she worked as an undergraduate student in the Emotions and Social Interactions in Relationships (EASIR) lab studying the role of social interactions and emotions among couples. Kimberly's research interests lie in the environmental, cultural, and relational factors that shape behavior and emotional development. She's interested in studying what contextual factors affect children's emotional regulation ability and as a consequence the development of internalized disorders.
✉ kml7098@psu.edu
Desirée Mecca
Desirée joined the CAT lab as a research assistant for the Parent-to-Child Anxiety Transmission project in 2024. She graduated from the Pennsylvania State University with a B.S. in Psychology in the spring of 2024. Before graduating, Desirée worked as an undergraduate research assistant in the CAT Lab and Dr. Nancy Dennis's Cognitive Aging and Neuroimaging Lab. Desirée is interested in the effects of early childhood adversity on cognitive and emotional development.
✉ dmm7274@psu.edu