Rebecca Bulotsky Shearer
rshearer@miami.edu
Dr. Shearer is a child clinical and school psychologist and has worked both as an early childhood practitioner and researcher with very young children and families living in impoverished urban areas for the past 20 years. My research is guided by a "whole child" developmental-ecological systems perspective which is child-centered and considers both proximal and broader system-level influences on children's development over time. My research is grounded in a community-based partnership model whereby research is conducted in close collaboration with key contributors to children's development. This process starts with genuine dialogue about children's needs and considers the strengths and intervention capacities of large programs; I feel this approach helps to ensure that research is relevant to community members and holds the greatest promise to inform system-level interventions that can benefit low-income children and families.
Angie Gonzalez
angiegonz87@yahoo.com
Angie is the research coordinator for the Pyramid Model Project, where she is responsible for coordinating classroom and child observations across various centers in the community. She received her undergraduate degree in Psychology from Florida International University. Throughout her undergraduate career, she was a research assistant in the Infant Development Laboratory, where she observed differences in attention and intersensory processing skills for infants and young children of both typical and atypical development. Angie is interested in pursuing a graduate degree in school psychology with a focus in providing interventions to improve outcomes for children who are at high risk of different social-emotional, and behavioral problems.
Jhonelle Bailey
jhonellebailey@gmail.com
Jhonelle is a PhD student in the Developmental Psychology program. She received her undergraduate degree in psychology and linguistics from Emory University. Following graduation, she worked at the Marcus Autism Center. While she continues to be passionate about autism research, she has broadened her research interests to the social and emotional development of children living in underprivileged communities and how that relates to their school readiness skills. Jhonelle is interested in continuing to work in collaboration with the communities and forming partnerships with teachers and families. She hopes to understand how skills developed in the home context influence children’s learning behaviors and academic outcomes once they enter preschool.
Jenna Futterer
jfutterer714@gmail.com
Jenna is a PhD student in the Applied Developmental Psychology program. She received her undergraduate degree in child development and psychology from Texas Christian University in May 2018 and moved straight to Miami a few months later. Jenna is driven to develop community partnerships within early childhood education programs in low-income areas to support children, families, and teachers. She is broadly interested in children’s social-emotional development and school readiness skills across typically and atypically developing populations. Specifically, Jenna wants to better understand teacher-child relationships and how they relate to and affect children’s outcomes, such as their learning behaviors and academic skills.
Rinatte Gruen
rinatte.gruen@miami.edu
Rinatte is a PhD student in the Child & Family track of the Clinical Psychology program. She received her undergraduate degree in psychology from Boston University. Following graduation, she was a research fellow at the Yale Child Study Center through the Yale Fellowship in Translational Developmental Neuroscience. Rinatte is passionate about the development and implementation of evidence-based interventions to support children growing up in poverty and children who have experienced trauma. Furthermore, she is interested in ways to ensure that quality services are available and accessible for families in underserved communities.
