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
Sua Cho
Sua joined the CAT Lab as a research assistant for the HEALthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) Study in June 2024. She earned her B.A in Psychology and Visual Arts from Duke University. Prior to joining the CAT lab, she worked as an undergraduate research assistant in the Duke Early Experience and the Developing Brain (DEED) Lab, studying how caregiver-infant interactions shape infant vocalization patterns and language development. Sua is primarily interested in how early social experiences influence cognitive, language, and emotional development
✉ svc6195@psu.edu
Malu Tejada
Malu joined the lab in July 2024 to work on the HEALthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) Study as a T32 primary care research fellow at Penn State College of Medicine. She was born in Switzerland and earned her MD from the University of Geneva and trained as an ob-gyn. She earned her Master of Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK. Prior to joining the lab, she worked as an educator at Penn State Extension delivering programs on mental health, adult immunizations, vector borne diseases and cancer prevention. She is a certified bilingual Mental Health First Aid instructor. Malu is interested in maternal mental health and perinatal adverse health outcomes.
✉ mltejadasawers@gmail.com
Meghna Vasiraju
Meghna joined the CAT Lab as a research assistant for the HEALthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) Study in July 2024. She earned a B.A. in Psychology with a minor in Film and Screen Studies from Stony Brook University in May 2024. As an undergraduate, Meghna was a research assistant at the Klein Developmental Psychopathology Lab at Stony Brook University, studying risk factors and moderators and mediators of the development of mood and anxiety disorders, and at the Goldin-Meadow Lab at UChicago, studying social stereotypes and how perceptions and representations of others are communicated through gestures. Meghna is interested in researching how early-life adversity impacts emotion regulation, social development, and psychopathology later in life.
✉ mjv5503@psu.edu
Kaitlin Eberhart
Kaitlin joined the CAT Lab as a research assistant for the HEALthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) Study in October 2024. She earned her B.S. in Human Development & Family Studies from the Pennsylvania State University. Prior to joining the CAT lab, Kaitlin was an infant and toddler teacher at the Bennett Family Center. She also worked as case manager for children in foster care. Kaitlin’s research interests include early childhood development and factors mitigating adverse childhood experiences.
✉ kme5157@psu.edu
Olivia Perrier
Olivia joined the CAT Lab as a research assistant for the HEALthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) Study in October 2024. She earned a B.A. in Psychology and Sociology from the University of Michigan. In undergrad, she worked as a research assistant in the Evolutionary Social Psychology Lab studying disease concealment as well as the Volling Lab studying the transition from being an only child to becoming an older sibling. Her research interests lie in how cultural, social, and environmental factors influence child psychopathology and development.
✉ oqp5082@psu.edu
