CURRENT RESEARCH TEAM
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SAMANTHA SLADE, PH.D.
Lab Director; Assistant Professor in Psychology
I completed my BA in Psychology at the University of Akron in 2010. I completed my masters and doctoral degrees in Clinical Psychology at the University of Arkansas in 2017 (Woo Pig Sooie!).
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My research aims to develop and evaluate interventions that reduce risk and promote healthy relationships in underserved youth. Specifically, I am interested in the prevention of school bullying, dating violence and gang-related violence. I am currently involved in several projects related to evaluating school-based interventions to help chronically bullied children and adolescent girls at-risk for dating violence. I mostly conduct my work in community and school settings to increase access to services for underserved and vulnerable populations.
SARAH MCGILL, M.A.
Graduate Student Member
My broad research interests include implementation science, and the development and evaluation of interventions that focus on building healthy relationships in childhood and adolescence. My master’s thesis was focused on implementation outcomes and adoption of primary care behavioral health services. Specifically, I identified barriers and facilitators to the adoption of integration among behavioral health and medical providers at an urban community health clinic. As a Wichita native, I aim to conduct community-based research to promote the well-being of children and adolescents in our Wichita community.
ERAH ALI, M.A.
Graduate Student Member
My broad research interests include immigrant bullying, neurodevelopmental disorders among children and adolescents, and parent-child relationships. Specifically, I am interested in examining how parent-child relationships influence bullying behavior through a cultural lens. My master's thesis aimed to identify the relationship between parental/child cultural values and how children respond to various bullying situations. Results obtained demonstrated positive relations between some cultural values and prosocial by-standing behavior among peers. Overall, I aim to promote prosocial behavior among children who may have neurological deficits through school-based and family-based interventions.
MAKENNA SNODGRASS, M.A.
Graduate Student Member
My research interests include school bullying, adolescent and childhood trauma, and school-based interventions that are trauma-informed to decrease negative life outcomes after bullying. More specifically, I study the trauma-related symptoms and outcomes that children and adolescents experience after being bullied. I am also interested in the contextual factors of bullying and the impact those factors have on likelihood of children and adolescents developing trauma symptoms. My undergraduate research focused on physiological reactions to stressful tasks in relation to the participant’s history of adverse childhood experiences.
SARAH SMITH, M.A.
Graduate Student Member
My research interests include school and community-based interventions, at-risk adolescent populations, prevention science, and mentorship. More specifically, my aim is to further our understanding of how school and community-based interventions such as mentorship can provide support to at-risk and previously institutionalized youth to reduce rates of institutionalization and recidivism. My master’s thesis was a retrospective study examining the impact of high quality, school-based mentor-mentee relationships on mentee social functioning, classroom effort, and rate of disciplinary referrals for mentees returning to school after being discharged from a Psychiatric Residential Treatment Facility.
ROBIN MOORE, M.A.
Graduate Student Member
My broad research interests include interpersonal violence, childhood and adolescent traumatic stress, resiliency, and personal and contextual factors that may promote posttraumatic growth. Such factors include healthy social relationships, responses to disclosure, and perspective-taking. My master’s thesis explored the roles of defensive attribution, narrative perspective, and gender in perceptions of sexual assault scenarios. Findings suggested narrative perspective influences self-related perceptions and lend support to the research indicating significant gender differences in attributions of blame. Overall, I aim to contribute to our understanding of how individuals and communities can help facilitate posttraumatic growth in those impacted by interpersonal violence.
BINH AN HOWARD B. S.
Graduate Student Member
My research interests centers around identity development across various domains (i.e., ethnic/racial, academic, and parental identity) and the links between identity and health risk behaviors, psychological disorder, and psychosocial functioning. Specifically, I am interested in understanding the role identity development has on health risk behaviors (e.g., alcohol use, toxic relationships, etc.), depression and anxiety, and educational achievement among adolescents and emerging adults from underrepresented populations.
UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH ASSISTANTS
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LAB ALUMNI
Where are they now?
ELISSA FAILES, PH.D., PLMHP
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My dissertation aims to better understand the relationship between bidirectional intimate partner violence (BIPV), moral disengagement, and empathy in a sample of college students using a longitudinal, cross-lagged design. Results from this study will help shed light on important socio-cognitive process that may facilitate BIPV.
My final year of graduate school I will be completing an internship with the Munroe-Meyer Institute in their Rural Integrated Care Program located in NW Nebraska. During this year I will receive in depth training in working with rural families in a variety of healthcare settings.
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