Human Development Graduate Students

Leandro Chernicoff is a doctoral student in the Human Development area within the Department of Educational Psychology. He is interested in the development of cognitive, affective, and behavioral skills to foster well-being and alleviate suffering. This started as a personal quest, and since 2013 he has collaborated as Academic Director of AtentaMente, a Mexican nonprofit focused on teaching these very skills to adults, children, and teens. He is also a physicist and a full-time professor at UACM, one of three public universities in Mexico City, teaching college level math and physics since 2003.

Moon Evans is a doctoral student in the Human Development area within the Department of Educational Psychology. Moon is a member of the Enright Forgiveness lab and her research focus is on the moral-virtue sense of forgiveness in children, and their social awareness (healthy emotional and social skills development).

Ashley Ezpeleta is a doctoral student in the Human Development area within the Department of Educational Psychology. She received her B. A. in Psychology (minor in Linguistics) from Miami University in Ohio, where she did research on the relationships between text comprehension, inference generation, and working memory. In 2019 she came to UW-Madison as a lab manager and project coordinator for the Educational Neuroscience lab (also in the Educational Psychology Department) and discovered her passion for working in the field of Educational Psychology. Prior to starting graduate school, Ashley had taught pre-school and also tutored elementary students in reading and math. In her free time, Ashley loves spending time outside hiking and running with her dog, baking, and keeping up to date on watching movies/TV shows.

Tingting Fan is a doctoral student in the Human Development area within the Department of Educational Psychology. Tinging is interested in understanding how social media use may impact adolescents and young adults' well-being. Currently, she is working on projects investigating how college students' social media use impacts their mental health and social relationships during COVID-19 self-isolation.

Hui-Ru is a doctoral student in Human Development area within the Department of Educational Psychology. She is particularly interested in studying the relationship of multi-sensory integration and cognition. Moreover, she is looking forward to applying what she has learned in multi-sensory integration to education and improving user experience of technology in the future.

Pauline Ho is a doctoral student in the Human Development area within the Department of Educational Psychology. Her research program broadly focuses on identity development in adolescence and emerging adulthood. In particular, she is interested in three key facets (timing, content, and process) of identity development and its impact on adolescent health and well-being.

Maria Katiskathas is a doctoral student in the Human Development area within the Department of Educational Psychology and studying with Dr. Amy Bellmore.

Ginnie Kim is a doctoral student in the Human Development area within the Department of Educational Psychology, studying with Professor Sarah Short.

Melina Knabe is a doctoral student in the Human Development area within the Department of Educational Psychology. She works in the Learning, Cognition, and Development Lab with Dr. Haley Vlach. Her research interests lie in language and memory development of mono- and multilingual children.

Pema Lhamo is a doctoral student in the Human Development area within the Department of Educational Psychology. She is currently contributing to a large scale research project in Mexico that aims to foster the well-being of children and adults in the school environment by introducing social and emotional learning(SEL) curricula. She is also interested in understanding how practices that foster compassion can influence well-being and how such practices may strengthen relationships between individuals and larger communities.

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.

Nahlah Mandurah is a doctoral student in the Human Development area within the Department of Educational Psychology program under the supervision of Dr. Robert Enright. Nahlah received her bachelor degree in Kindergarten from Umm Al.Qura University in Saudi Arabia. In addition to the human development courses, she also did a field training teaching in school for a period of time. Throughout her bachelor program and field training, Nahlah has become interested in human development and how curriculum can promote the students’ psychological well-being.

Katherine Norman is a doctoral student in the Human Development area within the Department of Educational Psychology. Her research is focused on the cognitive impact of pretend play and drama practices at different stages of development.

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.

Hannah Rapp is a PhD candidate in the Human Development area within the Department of Educational Psychology. Her research is focused on evaluating and implementing forgiveness education interventions and the promotion of parent and child well-being following bullying abuse.

Xiaoxu Rong is a doctoral student in the Human Development area within the Department of Educational Psychology. She is interested how early adversity (e.g., poverty, maternal prenatal stress) plays a role in child brain development and cognitive ability development. Inspired by the experience of supporting children struggling with neurodevelopmental disorders (e.g. ADHD, autism), she hoped to learn more about the influences of early experiences on normal and abnormal brain development. In the long run, she aspired to get implications from research to help families build constructive rearing environments for children.

Xiangyun Tang is a doctoral student in the Human Development area within the Department of Educational Psychology. Her research is concerned with parent-child and romantic partner technoference, and the buffering role of forgiveness play.

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. Priscilla is part of Dr. Amy Bellmore’s research team, which focuses on school-based peer relationships during adolescence. Growing up in San Antonio, Texas, she has become highly interested on the impact of environmental factors on educational outcomes.

Jiahe Wang Xu is a doctoral student in the Human Development area within the Department of  Educational Psychology. She is a member of the Enright Forgiveness Lab, and participates in the Prevention, Intervention, and Enhancement Scholar Graduate Training Program. She received her B.A. in Applied Biology in City University of Hong Kong and master’s degree in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at UW-Madison.

Brooke Wollner is a doctoral student in the Human Development area within the Department of Educational Psychology under the supervision of Dr. Robert Enright. Her research interests include historical trauma and human development in relation to crime.

Qi Zhang is a doctoral student in the Human Development area within the Department of Educational Psychology. Her research interests include understanding the effect of forgiveness on mental health, and the role of forgiveness in family context.