Human Development Graduate Students

Xiang (Caroline) Cheng is a doctoral student in the Human Development area within the Department of Educational Psychology. She is a member of the Mathematics Education Learning and Development lab with Dr. Percival Matthews.

Moon Evans is a doctoral student in the Human Development area within the Department of Educational Psychology. Her research focuses on the development of forgiveness and agape love, as well as psychological well-being in children, adolescents, and adults.

Maria Katiskathas is a doctoral student in the Human Development area within the Department of Educational Psychology and studying with Dr. Amy Bellmore. Maria is interested in examining adolescent peer relationships and educational outcomes through a sociocultural lens. She hopes her research will contribute to a deeper understanding of how teens’ social relationships and educational experiences, both in school and social media contexts, influence their social and emotional development.

Ginnie Kim is a doctoral student in the Human Development area within the Department of Educational Psychology, working under the mentorship of Dr. Sarah Short. She earned her B.S. in Brain and Cognitive Sciences from the University of Rochester. Her research examines how early screen exposure influences children’s language and cognitive development, with a focus on incorporating measures of brain development to better understand the underlying mechanisms. She is also affiliated with the Center for Healthy Minds and is passionate about translating her research to support children’s resilience and well-being in the broader community.

Judith Korn is a doctoral student in the Human Development area within the Department of Educational Psychology and is advised by Dr. Robert Enright. Judith has a masters degree in both Clinical Psychology and Education. She has spent the last decade teaching math in the Madison area. Judith's research interests are in evaluating the effects of a well-designed SEL curriculum that incorporates moral development. She is particularly interested in the impact the study of forgiveness can have on mental health and in turn academic outcomes in our schools.

Shanthi Kuppa is a doctoral student in the Human Development area within the Department of Educational Psychology. Shanthi works with Dr. Haley Vlach in the Learning, Cognition and Development (LCD) lab.

Lyndsay Le is a doctoral student in the Human Development area within the Department of Educational Psychology. She is studying with Dr. Amy Bellmore. Lyndsay's research focuses on the impact of bullying on adolescents' perceptions of peer relationships, the coping mechanisms they employ, and their emotional and social development. She also explores how parents can support their children throughout this process. Through her work, she hope to provide valuable insights for adolescents facing difficulties in peer and parent-child relationships, as well as for parents seeking effective ways to help their children navigate these challenges.

Yan Li is a doctoral student in the Human Development area within the Department of Educational Psychology. Her research interest aims at understanding how to engage educational and cultural forces to promote virtue development, like the development of forgiveness.

Kancong (Silvia) Liu is a doctoral student in the Human Development area within the Department of Educational Psychology. She is a member of the Learning, Cognition, and Development (LCD) Lab, where she works with Dr. Haley Vlach.

Roy Luo is a doctoral student in Human Development in the Department of Educational Psychology, working with Dr. Edward Hubbard in the Educational Neuroscience Lab. His research investigates developmental changes in behavioral performance in executive functions and numerical cognition, and the brain-network mechanisms that support these abilities, with an emphasis on working memory and inhibitory control.

Sam Macksey is a doctoral student in the area of Human Development within the Department of Educational Psychology. She works with Dr. Haley Vlach in the Learning, Cognition and Development Lab. Samantha received her B.A. in Psychology (minor in mathematical modeling of complex systems) from Northeastern Illinois University.

Robby Quintana is a doctoral student in the Human Development area within the Department of Educational Psychology. He is working in the Mathematics Education and Learning Lab with Percival Matthews. Robby is interested in the relationship between spatial ability and mathematics.

Ashley Reece (Ezpeleta) is a doctoral student in the Human Development area working with Dr. Haley Vlach in the Learning, Cognition, and Development Lab. She received her B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Linguistics from Miami University. She was also the lab manager for Dr. Ed Hubbard's Educational Neuroscience Lab before joining the PhD program. Ashley’s work investigates how lower (e.g. biological)- and higher (e.g. meta)- memory processes influence young children’s language learning, with the goal of applying her work to educational settings.

Isaiah Stevens is a doctoral student in the Human Development area within the Department of Educational Psychology. He is interested in the way that students conceptualize mathematics problems. He is a member of the Mathematics Education Learning and Development (MELD) lab with Dr. Percival Matthews. He involves himself in the postsecondary mathematics community through educational opportunities in the mathematics department at UW-Madison. In his free time, he plays basketball, does landscape photography, and cooks for his family.

Yi Tong is a doctoral student in the Human Development area within the Department of Educational Psychology. She is a member of the Learning, Cognition, and Development lab with Dr. Haley Vlach.

Priscilla Tovar-Perez is a doctoral student in the Human Development area within the Department of Educational Psychology. She is a member of Dr. Amy Bellmore's research team, which studies school-based peer relationships during adolescence. Priscilla's research examines how adolescents make meaning of their social and academic environments, and how these experiences shape their well-being and development. Her work explores how friendship and identity contribute to adolescent girls' body image and sense of self, as well as how teens use Internet memes to cope with stressful events, such as the Covid-19 pandemic.  As a first-generation college student, Priscilla is passionate about applying insights from developmental psychology to create more supportive and inclusive educational spaces. She aims to bridge research and practice to help students feel seen, supported, and empowered to grow academically, especially those navigating higher education for the first time. 

Anna Veenendall is a doctoral student in the Human Development area within the Department of Educational Psychology. She works with Dr. Christy Starr. She earned her BS in Neurobiology and Psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she also worked as a research assistant in Dr. Judith Harackiewicz's PULSE lab. Before starting her graduate studies, Anna served as a research specialist under Dr. Andy Garbacz in School Psychology at UW. Her research interests center on the barriers and costs that adolescents and college students face in pursuing careers in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math.