Meet our Team

Monica (Mony) is sixth-year clinical psychology Ph.D. student in Dr. Gerstein’s FACT lab. She graduated from Brown University with a BA in psychology in 2017. Subsequently, she did research at the Rhode Island Consortium for Autism Research and Treatment and the Autism and Developmental Disorders Inpatient Research Collaborative. Mony is particularly interested in understanding neurodevelopmental challenges and increasing access to high-quality diagnostic and intervention services for families from historically underserved backgrounds. Her dissertation focuses on measuring and understanding patterns of emotion dysregulation among autistic youth. Mony is currently completing her predoctoral internship at the Dell Medical Center in the Pediatric Health Psychology track.

Learn about Mony’s summer immersion experience in Peru here!

Haley is a fifth year Clinical Psychology graduate student in the FACT lab. She graduated in 2018 with a BS in Psychology from the University of Delaware. After graduation, she did research at the Child Mind Institute in their community-based research lab, The Healthy Brain Network. She is particularly interested in examining how parenting processes can impact child development and potentially buffer the effects of adverse childhood experiences. Her thesis will examine the relationship between parental depressive symptoms and child language development, and how parenting processes may impact the relationship.

Jessilyn is a fourth year clinical psychology PhD student in Dr. Gerstein’s FACT Lab. She graduated from Cal State Fullerton with a BA in psychology in 2015, and subsequently obtained her MS in clinical psychology from San Jose State University in 2017. After working primarily as a FIRST 5 and school-based therapist, Jessilyn transitioned to a full-time research assistant position with Dr. Marylene Cloitre at the National Center for PTSD in Palo Alto, working with women Veterans who had experienced MST. Her current research interests center around perinatal mental health, and generally how maternal stress and trauma influence parenting outcomes. Her master’s thesis focused on the determinants of parenting outcomes within a high-risk sample, examining how risk such as parenting stress, child emotion dysregulation, and home disorganization influence parenting sensitivity and detachment. Her specialty paper will focus on the transdiagnostic factors present across postpartum psychopathology.

Mady is a second year Clinical Psychology graduate student in the FACT Lab. She graduated with a BS in Psychology from the University of Pittsburgh in 2020. As an undergraduate and, following graduation, a research assistant, Mady worked under Dr. Jana Iverson at the Infant Communication Lab studying developmental cascades across the first three years of life. Her current research interests include exploring the relationships between parenting behaviors, the parent-child relationship, and child outcomes. Mady’s thesis will examine associations between parent perceptions of the parent-child relationship and other factors such as parenting stress and child behavior problems.