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Angelica Ronald
Birkbeck, University of London, UK http://www.bbk.ac.uk/psychology/our-staff/academic/angelica-ronald http://www.gel.bbk.ac.uk What does your research focus on? What causes people to have mental health problems across the lifespan. My research has so far focused on neurodevelopmental disorders, in particular, autism spectrum conditions. I am just starting a new project on the causes of psychotic experiences in adolescence. Both of these projects involve a longitudinal twin design to estimate the role of genetic and environmental influences on these conditions, as well as molecular genetic association designs.
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Amie Grills-Taquechel
University of Houston What does your research focus on? My primary research program focuses on examining developmental pathways to childhood anxiety disorders, as well as developing and evaluating prevention/intervention programs for childhood anxiety-related problems. My work in this area has examined the roles of peer (e.g., bullying and friendship quality), familial (e.g., parental anxiety and stress), and academic variables (e.g., achievement, attention) in the development of pediatric anxiety. I also have a secondary area of research, which pertains to risk and resiliency factors involved in the development of anxiety and related difficulties following traumatic events.
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Alan Castel
University of California, Los Angeles http://castel.bol.ucla.edu/ What does your research focus on? I study memory, metacognition and cognitive aging. I am interested in age-related differences in memory and cognition and how people make judgments and predictions about memory performance. Specifically, I am very interested in how people remember important information, and if older adults learn to remember important things at the expense of less important information. If you know you can’t remember everything, how do you prioritize what is important to remember? Does this same ability to focus on important information also make one a good student?
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J. David Creswell
Carnegie Mellon University, Health and Human Performance Laboratory www.psy.cmu.edu/~creswell/ What does your research focus on? My research focuses on how the mind and brain influence our physical health. Much of my work examines basic questions about stress and coping and trying to understand how these factors can be modulated through stress-reduction interventions. In two related lines of research, I am exploring the mechanisms for how self-affirmation and mindfulness meditation reduce stress and improve health outcomes in at-risk stressed patient populations.
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Angela Duckworth
University of Pennsylvania www.sas.upenn.edu/~duckwort/ What does your research focus on? I study individual differences that predict achievement. In particular, I’m interested in self-control, defined as the regulation of emotion, attention, and behavior in the service of valued goals and standards, and grit, defined as sustained perseverance and passion for especially challenging goals.
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Dana Carney
Columbia University, Graduate School of Business www.columbia.edu/~dc2534/ What does your research focus on? I am interested in the incredible power of tiny, ordinary, nonverbal cues. What drew you to this line of research? Why is it exciting to you? I was drawn to this research because of how diagnostic these cues can be when trying to make inferences about others’ mental states. Who were/are your mentors or psychological influences? I have had so many incredible mentors and I have been influenced by so many wonderful minds — I could fill all of these pages with the names. My very first mentor was Maureen O’Sullvan. Maureen died last year.
