Author: PANDA Project

The Center for Behavioral Health presented several posters at InCHIP’s Annual Meeting and Research Showcase! Click here to check out the presentations page.

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Dr. Katie Newkirk is a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Center for Behavioral Health at Connecticut Children’s. She earned her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology in 2018 from the University of Massachusetts – Amherst, where she researched working parents’ mental health and relationships across the transition to parenthood, with attention to how employment factors and family processes during this life stage are related to parents’ mental health and children’s developmental outcomes. Her dissertation addressed how postpartum depression and comorbid anxiety are related to father involvement in childcare. Her research interests include parents’ mental health in the context of work and family life, perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, family behavioral health integration with medical care, and trajectories of depression and anxiety at different points across the lifespan. Her current research focuses on parents’ work and adolescent mental health, and predictors of trajectories of depression and anxiety during adolescence and early adulthood. We are excited to have Dr. Newkirk join our team!

Anna Vannucci and Dr. Christine Ohannessian were featured in Connecticut Children’s Research Digest for the article entitled, “Social media use subgroups differentially predict psychosocial well-being during early adolescence”. Please click here for the full report and click here for the link to the article abstract.

Nicole Watkins is Post-Doctoral Fellow, who joined the Center for Behavioral Health at Connecticut Children’s in July, and has made a great addition to our team! She earned her M.S. in Learning and Developmental Sciences from Indiana University, her B.S. in Psychology from Wright State University, and is currently a doctoral student at Indiana University. Her research interests focus on adolescence, emerging adulthood, and family structure. A consistent theme in her research has been predictors of health and well-being of adolescents and emerging adults, specifically focusing on three related areas of study, including studies of: (a) differences in the associations between parental divorce and parental death on educational outcomes and risk behaviors, (b) timing of family transitions and associations with child and emerging adult health, and (c) romantic relationships during adolescence and emerging adulthood.

We have new staff members joining our team: Rachel Taylor and Cali Salafia! Rachel is a graduate student at UConn in the human development and family studies program, and is a new research assistant at the Center for Behavioral Health. Cali is a research volunteer at the Center for Behavioral Health and is pursuing her Master’s degree in health psychology at Central Connecticut State University.

A new PANDA article entitled, “Social media use subgroups differentially predict psychosocial well-being during early adolescence”  was recently published online in Journal of Youth and Adolescence. It is available to read by clicking here!

A new PANDA article entitled, “Bidirectional relationships between school connectedness and internalizing symptoms during early adolescence” was recently published online in the Journal of Early Adolescence. Check out the publications page for more details!