What are some of the steps you took in life and/or influences that brought you to your current area of research?
My interest in cognitive and brain development started during my undergraduate years. At that time, I worked in a lab that collected data from preschool and school-aged children and worked as a ‘teacher’ at the YMCA. In both of these roles, I was struck by the differences in how younger children and older children recalled memories. I subsequently wrote my honors thesis as a meta-analysis of the impact of parental depression on language development, and many of the included studies discussed potential impacts on memory. I couldn’t get enough, and pursued graduate training focused on memory development. During my PhD, I expanded my research to consider the brain’s role in supporting memory development. This led to my love of the hippocampus. During my postdoc, my goal was to increase the diversity and representativeness of my samples to better assess the impact of environmental context on cognitive and brain development. Environmental context is large and encompasses individual child’s attributes and the intersection with the household and school, neighborhood, and systemic factors—and this is a dynamic system that shifts across the lifespan. Which brings us to my current area of research.
What is your current area of research and what’s an example of a current project you are involved in?
My current area of research is the characterization of individual differences in brain and memory development to gain insights into the mechanism of their development and sources of modifiable risk and protective factors. Specifically with a focus on episodic memory and the hippocampus. I aim to 1) elucidate the mechanisms that explain the relation between episodic memory and the hippocampus across development; 2) identify socioeconomic environmental factors that modify brain and cognitive development across childhood and adolescence; and 3) apply an understanding of individual differences in brain and cognitive development to promote positive outcomes in children from diverse backgrounds. An example of a project I am currently working on is the use of Integrative Data Analysis (an applied quantitative method) with pediatric imaging data collected at different sites across the country. During this project, I have demonstrated the ability to combine data not originally collected for use together and account for site-specific variance not related to the underlying measures. This allows me to test questions of brain development in a more diverse and nationally representative sample. Critically, it allows me to test questions about the role of socioeconomic resources on brain development not otherwise possible in the individual datasets.
What are a couple of interesting findings that have come from your past research projects?
Across my studies, I have consistently found a pattern of age-dependent differences in episodic memory and hippocampal subfield development accompanied by striking individual differences. Considering the vast variability in changes not explained by age alone, the importance of considering one’s environmental context during development emerges. For example, I demonstrated the vulnerability of specific hippocampal subfields volumes to household socioeconomic status. I am following this study by considering different levels of environmental influences on these brain regions. By examining environmental context at different levels, some of my preliminary work suggests nuanced shifts in the pattern of socioeconomic impact on brain development. Specifically, hippocampal subfields are more sensitive to differences in household resources during childhood with a shift in this sensitivity to neighborhood resources during adolescence.
What excites you most about your next couple of years at UMass?
I am very excited to continue my work in such a welcoming and scientifically rich environment. I am looking forward to the opportunity to build relationships and potential collaboration with my new colleagues. I cannot wait to build my lab here and to work alongside trainees as we pursue new research questions together!