Maya Bowen
Maya Bowen is a Ph.D. student in the Developmental Psychology program at the University of Minnesota’s Institute of Child Development (ICD). She holds a B.A. in Psychology, B.S. in Human Development, and Education Minor from the University of California, Davis. She is interested in risk and resilience in early development with a focus on supporting intervention programs for at-risk children and families.
Clarissa Filetti
Clarissa Filetti is a Ph.D. student in the Developmental Psychology program at the University of Minnesota’s Institute of Child Development (ICD). She is interested in identifying biological, psychological, and socio-environmental mechanisms of resilience and intends to translate her research to improve interventions, programs, and policy for children and families experiencing adversity. Currently, she is involved in the Gunnar Lab’s Social Buffering Project. Clarissa received her B.A. in Psychology and Family Studies from the University of St. Thomas in 2018 and worked as a Project Coordinator at the Minneapolis VA Health Care System with Drs. Melissa Polusny and Christopher Erbes before coming to ICD.
Bria Gresham
Bria Gresham is a Ph.D. student in Developmental Psychology at the Institute of Child Development. She received her B.S. in Psychology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 2019. She works with Drs. Canan Karatekin and Megan Gunnar in her home department, as well as with a network of researchers in the Minnesota Population Center as a Population Studies Predoctoral Trainee. Her research centers around childhood and adolescent adversity, particularly negative experiences in one’s community or neighborhood (e.g., violence exposure). In addition to examining the physiological and psychological effects of adversity, she also investigates broader contextual factors that lead to the disproportionate distribution of adverse experiences.
Maddie Fung
Maddie is a Ph.D. student in the Developmental Psychology program at the Institute of Child Development, working with Drs. Megan Gunnar and Kathleen Thomas. She is interested in the influence of pubertal and stress hormones on structural and functional brain development, and using both neurobiological and neuroimaging methods to explore these changes during adolescence. Currently, she is involved in the MRI Study of Stress and Social Support. Maddie received her B.S. in Biology from Creighton University in 2019 and completed a postgraduate research fellowship with Dr. Tony Wilson at the Institute for Human Neuroscience, studying neurophysiological development using magnetoencephalography (MEG).
Mariann Howland
Mariann Howland is a Ph.D. student on the Developmental Psychopathology and Clinical Science track at the Institute of Child Development (ICD). She is interested in risk and resilience processes during sensitive windows of development, particularly the gestational period for fetus and mother. Currently, she is involved in the Women and Infants Study of Health, Emotions and Stress. She received her B.A. in Psychology from California State University, Fullerton in 2013 and worked as a research coordinator on a study of pregnancy and infant development in the Conte Center at University of California, Irvine before coming to ICD.
Finola E. Kane-Grade
Finola Kane-Grade is a Ph.D. student on the Developmental Psychopathology and Clinical Science track at the Institute of Child Development (ICD). She is interested in neurobiological mechanisms linking early life stress and later psychopathology and health outcomes. Additionally, she hopes to identify protective mechanisms underlying resilience (such as social buffering) and translate this knowledge in ways that can be used to inform prevention efforts. Currently, she is involved in the Social Buffering Project. She received her B.A. in Psychology and Music Performance from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2016 and completed an honors thesis on stress and learning with Dr. Seth Pollak. She then completed a postgraduate research fellowship at the Yale Child Study with Dr. Katarzyna Chawarska studying early markers of autism risk, and most recently worked as a research coordinator at Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School with Drs. Charles Nelson and Michelle Bosquet Enlow studying emotional development and risk markers for childhood anxiety
Mirinda Morency
Mirinda Morency (LCSW), a NIMH Predoctoral Fellow, is a Ph.D. student in the joint Developmental Psychopathology and Clinical Science program at the University of Minnesota, Institute of Child Development. Her research focuses on the impact of context (e.g., school quality, community violence exposure) and structural policies on the developmental trajectory of ethnic-racial minority youth. She also investigates risk and resilience processes across the life course and across generations, currently exploring biological resilience among Black youth residing in high-stress communities. Originally from the south suburbs of Chicago, she has actively engaged in community-based participatory research (CBPR) in Chicago through directing a cross-age peer mentoring program aimed at mitigating adverse outcomes associated with violence exposure/engagement while fostering positive youth development. She holds a Master’s in Social Work from Columbia University New York, where she provided trauma-informed clinical services before coming to Minnesota. Mirinda hopes to continue to unpack cultural nuances surrounding early childhood program/treatment effectiveness (i.e., for whom and under what conditions yield maximum program impact/reduce or eliminate risk) and translate her research into culturally-sensitive, developmentally appropriate preventive interventions for youth and families, ultimately contributing to equitable health and psychological well-being.