Similar to many of my students, I worked while attending school full time at the University of Michigan, Dearborn, where I earned a B.A. in Psychology. My PhD is in developmental psychology from Wayne State University in Detroit, MI with a minor in physiological psychology (before the days of "neuropsychology"). My dissertation research was done at the University of Denver (long story), where I conducted infancy research for three years after completing my masters degree. I held a post-doctorate position at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where I studied the genetics of emotional development (twin studies) before returning to Denver. I have been teaching in the psychology department at UCD since the Spring, 2000 semester. My past research in developmental psychology included studying infant cognition and temperament, genetics of emotion, physiological markers of infant stress, and psychological factors in the management of asthma in children.
My current interests remain developmental but focus now more on college students. These include examining the effects of a growth versus fixed mindset on learning, developing best practices for undergraduate education (on line and face-to-face), incorporating experiential learning components into my classes and studying how attitudes toward aging affect learning about the elderly. I have been an Advanced Placement Test reader for Psychology for the Educational Testing System (a lot more fun than it sounds!) for eight years and am a proud member of the American Psychological Society (APS) and the Society for Teaching of Psychology (STP).
