Project SIESTA Investigators
Douglas M. Teti
- Professor of Human Development and Psychology
- Professor-in-Charge, HDFS Graduate Program
- Ph.D. (Developmental Psychology), 1984, University of Vermont
- Office: 814-865-2644
- Fax: 814-863-7963
- dmt16@psu.edu
- www.hhdev.psu.edu/hdfs/faculty/teti.html
- Research Areas
- Child Development, Family Studies, Research Methods
- Centers/Labs
- The Prevention Research Center, Child Study Center (CSC)
- Interests
- Socioemotional development in infancy and early childhood, parenting, and intervention strategies designed to promote early development and parent-child relations
- Biography
- Dr. Teti is a developmental scientist whose research is focused on infant and early child development. He has a long-standing interest in socio-emotional development in early childhood and parenting, and how parents and children mutually influence each other over time. Dr. Teti’s research examines the effects of biological/medical and environmental/parenting factors on child development and parenting during the early years of life. He has extensively studied infant-parent attachment relationships, parental depression and early child development, interventions to promote infant-parent relationships, and development in premature infants. Dr. Teti is principal investigator of Project SIESTA (Study of Infants’ Emergent Sleep TrAjectories), a longitudinal study of the development of infant-parent sleep patterns, and their effects on infant development, during the infants’ first two years of life. He is also director of two additional, ongoing projects, the Minds of Mothers Study (MOMS), and Project Touch.
Pamela M. Cole
- Professor of Psychology and Human Development and Family Studies
- Department of Psychology
- The Pennsylvania State University
- 417 Moore Building
- University Park, PA 16802
- Phone: 814-863-1746
- Fax: 814-863-7002
- pmc5@psu.edu
- psych.la.psu.edu/directory/faculty-bios/cole.html
- Research Areas
- Clinical child psychology, child development, emotion regulation
- Interests
- Early emotional development and how developing patterns of emotional functioning relate to the development of competence and maladjustment, particularly in terms of how children manage and communicate emotion
- Biography
- Pamela Cole studies emotional development and emotion regulation (the ability to modulate one’s emotional reactions) in early childhood. The ability to regulate emotions in effective and flexible ways plays a role in the development of social, emotional, and cognitive competencies in children. In previous work, she has shown that typically developing preschoolers can (a) self-modulate anger, (b) self-generate positive emotions even if a situation is difficult, and (c) self-generate effective strategies for regulating emotion, and that children who have difficulty doing these things may be at risk for later psychopathology. Current work (e.g., the Development of Toddlers Study, or DOTS) is designed to understand how toddlers become competent emotion regulators as preschoolers, and how culture influences how emotion is regulated.
Michael J. Rovine
- Professor
- Ph.D. (Educational Psychology), 1982, Penn State
- Human Development and Family Studies
- Penn State University
- mr7@psu.edu
- www.hhdev.psu.edu/hdfs/faculty/rovine.html
- Research Areas
- Research methodology
- Interests
- Environmental psychology; structural modeling with both continuous and discrete variables; analyzing longitudinal data
- Biography
- Dr. Rovine’s interest is in statistical modeling. For example, he is looking at ways to estimate a number of different multilevel models as structural equation models. One model of particular interest is a multilevel autoregressive model that could have important implications for those collecting relatively intensive time series data. He is also working on a general model, the nonstationary autoregressive moving average model that can be used to describe essentially any latent variable model. This general model has important implications for model comparison and testing. Dr. Rovine has also been working on a more idiographic approach to the description of developmental phenomena, and he and a number of Penn State collaborators are engaged in a study funded by the National Science Foundation to develop and apply time series models to developmental data. Dr. Rovine also studies the history of statistics, in particular the contributions of the philosopher C.S. Peirce to the development of statistical methodology.
Cynthia A. Stifter
- Professor of Human Development
- Human Development and Family Studies
- Penn State University
- Ph.D. (Human Development), 1987, University of Maryland
- tvr@psu.edu
- www.hhdev.psu.edu/hdfs/faculty/stifter.html
- Research Areas
- Child development
- Centers/Labs
- Infant Temperament Lab
- Interests
- Socio-emotional development in infants, toddlers, and preschool children, specifically focused on emotion regulation and the emergence of behavior problems. Other research areas: developmental psychophysiology, infant crying and colic, parental regulation strategies.
- Biography
- Dr. Stifter’s research is on socio-emotional development in infants, toddlers, and preschool children with an emphasis on the development of, and individual differences in, infant emotional reactivity and the ability to regulate emotion in infancy and early childhood. She has been investigating how the infant’s temperament, physiological make-up, and parenting environment each contribute to the emergence of the self-regulation of the emotions of anger and fear. Currently, she is applying temperament and emotion regulation to physical health. Dr.Stifter is collaborating with others to examine the impact of temperament and parental soothing strategies on childhood obesity. In addition, she is studying how positive affect can reduce the effects of stress on children’s immune system. In addition to Project SIESTA, Dr. Stifter’s research projects include the Emotional Beginnings Project, the Family Life Project, and HAPPY (Health and Positivity during the Preschool Years).
Ian M. Paul
- Associate Professor of Pediatrics
- College of Medicine
- Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center
- M.D., Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine, 1998
- Residency, Duke University Medical Center
- Interests
- Newborn health outcomes, childhood obesity, breastfeeding, pediatric therapeutics, asthma
- Biography
- Ian M. Paul, M.D., is an associate professor of pediatrics and public health sciences at Penn State University. Dr. Paul achieved a doctor of medicine and master's of science degree from Penn State and completed his pediatric residency at Duke University Medical Center. Since returning to Penn State as faculty in 2001, Dr. Paul has focused on two general areas of clinical research: (1) preventive interventions delivered during the newborn period, and (2) clinical therapeutics for children. He is currently funded as a PI by HRSA/MCHB to study the impact of postnatal/postpartum home visits for breastfeeding newborns in a suburban setting, and co-investigator on grants from NHLBI, NIDDK, NICHD, and CDC. Dr. Paul is the director of the Pediatric Clinical Research Office at Penn State Children's hospital and has also studied the use of over-the-counter cough and colds medicine for children.
Thomas F. Anders
- Distinguished Professor Emeritus
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
- UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute
- 2825 50th St.
- Sacramento, CA 95817
- Office: 916-703-0230
- thomas.anders@ucdmc.ucdavis.edu
- Biography
- Considered a leading expert in child psychiatry, Dr. Anders helped establish the UC Davis Behavioral Health Center in 1996 and the M.I.N.D. Institute in 1998. He is the immediate past president of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and serves as the chair of its Steering Committee on Workforce Issues. He has served on several textbook/journal editorial boards and committees for the National Institute of Mental Health, National Board of Medical Examiners, National Scientific Advisory Council and California State Council on SIDS. Dr. Anders studies developmental psychiatry and the relationship of psychopathology to psychiatric disorders in young patients. His sleep research focuses on pediatric sleep patterns, including ontogenesis of sleep-wake states from infancy through early childhood. He also studies sleep disorders in children with autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders.