I received my Ph.D. in Psychology (Developmental) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2003. My undergraduate degree was also in Psychology from Northwestern University.
I direct the Children and Parents Lab at Ohio State and also serve as the Vice Chair for Instruction in the Department of Psychology. I teach undergraduate courses on child and family psychology and graduate courses on attachment theory and research. I supervise numerous undergraduate students conducting thesis research projects and graduate students pursuing doctoral degrees in Developmental Psychology.
My research focuses on understanding family relationships and their implications for children’s social and emotional development and for parents’ health and wellbeing. I approach my work primarily from family systems theory and attachment theory perspectives.
Scholarly Interests: coparenting, parental gatekeeping, father-child relationships, transition to parenthood, child influences on family relationships, overparenting, parental estrangement