Faculty research projects

Stephanie Carlson
Cognitive development
Our research examines the development of executive function/self-regulation, social understanding, and pretend play/symbolism in young children. We are particularly interested in the interactions among these skills, and study them using behavioral (cross-sectional and longitudinal), neuroimaging, and cross-cultural approaches. Current studies investigate executive function and bilingualism/biculturalism (Spanish-English; Korean-English), measurement tools for executive function in preschoolers, symbolic thought and conscious control of action, emotion regulation, neural correlates of decision-making, parenting and cultural influences on executive function and social understanding, children’s teaching ability as an index of social understanding, and the development of role-play and imaginary companions.

W. Andrew Collins
Socialization, social cognition, family relations; also: Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (with Drs. Egeland and Sroufe)
Processes of change in peer and romantic relationships are the focus of my current research. In one line of work, we are conducting intensive interviews and observations with the participants in this project, who are now in their early twenties, and their romantic partners. In addition, we are studying autonomy in late adolescence and young adulthood in relation to competence measured in earlier developmental periods.

Nicki R. Crick, The Crick Social Development Lab
Developmental research on the development of relational and physical aggression
My research team has focused recently on the study of relational aggression (e.g., using social exclusion or rumor spreading as a form of retaliation), a form of aggression that has been shown to be more characteristic of girls than are the physical, overt forms of aggression that traditionally have been studied in the past.

Byron Egeland,  Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children
Developmental psychopathology, abuse and maltreatment; also: Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (with Drs. Sroufe and Collins)
Together with my collaborators, I continue to conduct a longitudinal study of high-risk children and their families which began in 1975. The aims include identifying the antecedents and developmental pathways leading to behavior problems and psychopathology as well as competence and resilience. We are not assessing developmental adaptation in adulthood and I am interested in identifying the factors that are related to the onset of disorders (e.g. Borderline Personality) and the desistence of disorders (e.g. antisocial) during this period.

Xiaojia Ge, Growth and Development Lab
Adolescent development, developmental psychopathology, biological and environmental interactions
My research focuses on children's emotional and behavioral development. Much of my work focuses on the influence of pubertal transition on adolescents' emotional and behavioral development. Recently, I collaborate with researchers at Pennsylvania State University (PSU), Oregon Social Learning Center (OSLC), and George Washington University (GWU) to study interaction between biological and psychosocial factors in child development via an adoption project.

Michael K. Georgieff, M.D.
Early nutrition and cognitive development
Our laboratory studies the effect of fetal and newborn nutrition on cognitive development. Late fetal and early newborn deficits in iron, protein, zinc and other nutrients seems to target the hippocampus, thus affecting short term memory functioning and long-term cognitive development. From a clinical research perspective, much of our research happens in the Center for Neurobehavioral Development, of which I am the Director, and on the Newborn Intensive Care Nursery.

Abigail Gewirtz
Children's exposure to traumatic events, parenting, prevention research
Our research team focuses on the impact of exposure to violence on observed parenting practices and children's development, and on the implementation of evidence-based prevention and treatment interventions in community settings.

Megan R. Gunnar, The Gunnar Lab
Social and biological aspects of development
Our research focuses on the emotional and social processes that regulate physiological responses to stressful events early in childhood. Much of my work involves a stress-sensitive neuroendrocine system, the adrenocortical system. Recently, I have begun to explore the impact of abuse and neglect on the development of neuroendocrine and autonomic responsivity. My students and I are particularly interested in following the development of international children adopted from institutional (orphanage) rearing environments.

Canan Karatekin, The Karatekin Lab
Clinical child neuropsychology, information processing, working memory, attention, executive functions
Our lab is interested in investigating cognitive processes in children and adolescents with psychiatric and neurological disorders. This research can lead to a better understanding of the basic nature and normal development of the processes, the neurobiological bases and mechanisms of dysfunction in the disorders, as well as improved treatment options for the children and their families.

Melissa Koenig, The Koenig Lab
Language acquisition, cognitive development, pragmatics and social cognition, word learning
Our research interests lie at the interface of social cognition and language development. Currently, my work focuses on the different kinds of information children use to determine the reliability of a message. I am also interested in young children’s developing understanding of mental states as expressed in communication as well as how they come to appreciate language as a conventional system.

Michael P. Maratsos
Theory and history of development
I am interested in historical and anthropological studies of development, with some particular interest in the importance of economic and technological factors in the societal construction of childhoods, and the reaction range of human nature in dealing with these. I am also interested in the ramifications for developmental theory, of the variability caused by such factors.

Ann S. Masten, Project Competence Lab
Developmental psychopathology, stress and coping, humor
With my research team, I study the processes that may account for the development of competence in risky environments, with a focus on the protective processes that help children overcome adversity or avoid the dangers that arise in ordinary life as well as the extraordinary situations of war and trauma.

Anne D. Pick, professor emeritus
Perceptual development and cognitive processes
My research is concerned with perceptual learning during infancy and early childhood. I am particularly interested in how multisensory experiences guide or promote early perceptual learning. My colleagues and I are investigating the emergence of joint visual attention during infancy as well as preschool children’s categorization of objects and object representations (i.e., drawings or photographs). We are investigating the role of functional properties of objects and of exploratory activity in how children classify objects.

Herbert L. Pick
Perceptual development, learning
My research is concerned with spatially coordinated behavior, broadly construed. My colleagues and I are particularly interested in the ways one combines sensory and cognitive skills to accomplish behavior in the spatial environment. On the cognitive side, some investigations are focused on the way children and adults organize their spatial knowledge and how they use that knowledge for finding their way and for giving spatial directions to others. On the sensory and perceptual side, a central question in my research is the identification of information for guiding locomotion.

Arthur J. Reynolds
The focal point of my current work is as Director of the Chicago Longitudinal Study, one of the largest and most extensive studies of the effects of early childhood intervention. The project tracks the life-course development of 1,500 children who attended early childhood programs in inner-city Chicago. The main focus is on the effects of the Child-Parent Center program, a school-based intervention from preschool to the early school grades.

Maria D. Sera, Language and Cognitive Development Laboratory
My research focuses on the relation between language and cognitive development. Current projects focus on the relation between developing knowledge of spatial constructions in ASL and developing mental rotation and perspective-taking skills, understanding the nature of grammatical gender effects on categorization, the relation between knowledge of classifiers in Chinese, Hmong, and Japanese and conceptual development, understanding the nature of differences between children and adults in their representation of object shapes, and the acquisition of English as a second language by native Spanish-speaking preschoolers.

L. Alan Sroufe, Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children
Socioemotional development, developmental psychopathology, also: Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (with Drs. Egeland and Collins)
My research involves the complementary study of normal and abnormal development. The basic strategy of that research is to define the salient developmental issues for each period, then trace normative pathways and delineate developmental deviations. The research articulates a general model of development and psychopathology where behavior is seen as a joint product of past history and current circumstances The focus of my recent work is on adjustment in adolescence and the transition to adulthood.

Kathleen Thomas, Cognitive Developmental Neuroimaging Lab
Cognitive development, implicit learning, pediatric neuroimaging, functional magnetic resonance imaging
Research in my laboratory explores the development and neurobiological correlates of nondeclarative or implicit learning during the preschool and school age periods. Our studies examine stimulus and response factors that constrain learning at different ages and relate these cognitive changes to ongoing brain development.

Richard A. Weinberg
Behavior genetics, assessment, preschool education
My research program has focused on the development of individual differences in intellectual skills, personality characteristics, psychosocial adjustment, and other variables from early childhood through young adulthood. I have employed the adoption method to study the effects of environments and genetic endowment on human development.

Albert Yonas, The Yonas Lab
Perceptual development
Our work centers on how infants and preschool children come to perceive the visual world. It isolates the visual information that makes perception possible and explores when in development infants become sensitive to that information. The research has explored various cues to three-dimensional layout of the environment and more recently has investigated how shadows, transparency, and highlights are interpreted by infants.

Philip David Zelazo, The Zelazo Lab
Developmental cognitive neuroscience
Our lab focuses on the study of the development and neural bases of executive function, or the conscious control of thought, action, and emotion. We use a variety of approaches, from experimental to cross-cultural to electrophysiological (EEG/ERP), to explore different theories of executive function including Cognitive Complexity & Control theory and the Levels of Consciousness model.