Project SIESTA Staff
- Molly Countermine
- Molly is the Project Coordinator for Project SIESTA and an advanced graduate student in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at Penn State's University Park campus. She studied at Auburn University for her bachelor's degree in communicative disorders, and West Chester University for her master's degree in the same field. She began teaching infant and child development courses for Penn State in 1998, then began studying for her Ph.D. in 2004. Molly's research interests center around family and child sleep arrangements in infancy and toddlerhood. She is the mother of two children, Lucy (4) and Leo (1), with her husband, Rene' Witzke. Molly and Rene' are local musicians in and around State College.
- Brian Crosby
- Post-Doctoral Fellow
- Child Study Center
- 101A – University Support Building 1
- University Park, PA 16802
- 814-867-2352
- Brian’s training is in the area of clinical child psychology. His primary research and clinical interests concern sleep in children. In his research, Brian has explored group differences in sleep patterns and the importance of napping in preschool children. He is currently interested in the influence of sleep on behavior and emotion regulation in young children. Along with his research, Brian has experience in the clinical management of behavioral sleep problems in children.
- Alix Duxel
- Alix is a first year graduate student in the Applied Clinical Psychology masters program at Penn State Harrisburg. Her areas of focus are grief, anxiety and trauma and she is most interested in counseling children and war veterans.
- Bo-Ram Kim
- Bo is a second-year graduate student in HDFS. Her interests are socioemotional development in early childhood, quality of parent-child relationships, and the constituents of highly effective parenting. Bo would like to study the effects of maternal mental health and emotional tone of parent-child interactions on children’s emotional regulation and socioemotional well being. Currently she is working on two projects—the Minds of Mothers study, and SIESTA.
- Elizabeth ("Beth") Hunt
- Beth’s research interests focus on the risk and protective factors of families of divorce or breakup, and examining and identifying family processes that affect co-parenting strategies. Beth hopes that, by identifying both protective and risk factors in families, effective interventions can be developed to assist families in need.
- Gail Mayer
- Gail is a graduate research assistant for Project SIESTA and a graduate student in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at Penn State's University Park campus. She studied at University of Florida for her bachelor's degrees in psychology and spanish. Gail's research interests involve parent-child relationships and parents' influence on children's development, particularly socioemotional adjustment in early childhood.
- Alexia Hozella
- Alexia has a B.S in Psychology from The Pennsylvania State University, and is in the second year of the Applied Psychological Research program at The Pennsylvania State University (expected to graduate in December 2009). Her interests are in child development, especially social skills interventions such as the Promoting Alternative THinking Strategies (PATHS) model and attachment. She and her husband have one little girl, Micayla, and live in the Harrisburg area.
- Samantha Kramer
- Samantha is a first-year graduate student at the Harrisburg campus, on the clinical-track. She received her Bachelor’s degree at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, CT, but is originally from Long Island, NY. Her general areas of research interest include psychopathology, the etiology of severe psychotic disorders, and the roles played by early childhood and adolescent experiences in the development of psychological disorders.
- Cori Reed
- Cori is a graduate student at Penn State University. She is working to obtain her M.A. in Clinical Psychology. She is interested in child development and family studies, grief and trauma, and stress and coping.
- Hye-Young (Grace) Rhee
- Grace is a graduate student of HDFS at Penn State University. She studied at Seoul National University in South Korea for BA and MA degrees in child development. Her research interests are the influence of parent-child relationships on children's socio-emotional development and how parent-child relationship and parenting behaviors are affected by contextual and individual factors.
- Lauren Philbrook
- Lauren is a graduate student in the HDFS program at Penn State. She received her B.A. in Psychology with a concentration in Neuroscience from Williams College in 2009. Her interests lie in early childhood development and parenting behaviors. Specifically, she is interested in how early caregiving quality may influence children’s later social, emotional, and physiological development. She also interested in the development and implementation of intervention programs that focus on enhancing the parent-child relationship as a method by which to improve childhood outcomes.
- Katie Pollom
- Katie has a B.S. in psychology that she earned from Lycoming College. She is currently a graduate student at Penn State University where she is obtaining her M.A. in Applied Clinical Psychology. Her research interests include child development, attachment, stress/trauma and coping, and false memory.
- Corey Whitesell
- Corey is a full-time home-visitor for Project SIESTA and a native of Centre County. She is a recent graduate of Boston University with a Masters in International Educational Development. Corey’s research interests lie in the interaction of culture, adjustment, and early childhood development.