1. science
2. medicine
3. psychology and psychiatry

FALL 2014 SCHEDULE: Research at the Intersection of Developmental Science and Education
Date
Speaker
10/13
Fall Break: No CCHD meeting
10/20
*Cairns Capstone Lecture
Jacque Eccles
UC Irvine
“Linking Social Contexts and Human Development”
Co-sponsored by the School of Education
10/27
Tanner LeBaron Wallace
University of Pittsburgh
“Challenging Simplistic Exposure-Outcome Frameworks in ClassroomBased Research: Adolescents’ Perceptions and Valuing of Teacher Talk as
the Source Material of Developmentally-Significant Variability Within and
Between Classrooms”
11/3
April Benner
University of Texas at Austin
"The Role of Schools in Adolescents’ Well-being: Unpacking PersonContext Interactions”
11/10
Adam Gamoran
WT Grant Foundation
“Inequality is the Problem: What’s Our Response?”
11/17
Lynne Vernon-Feagans
UNC-Chapel Hill
TBA
11/24
12/2
Tom Farmer
Virginia Commonwealth
University
Jill Hamm
UNC-Chapel Hill
Seminar Title
“Disability and Adaptation: The Awesome Shared Responsibility of
Developmental Science and Special Education”
TBA
*The Cairns Capstone Lecture will take place in Graham Memorial Hall at UNC-CH. All other meetings take place in the lowerlevel CDS classroom and can be webcast to our partner institutions. If you have items to add to our newsletter, email Tristan
Long at tristan_long@unc.edu.
SPRING 2015 PREVIEW: Establishing a Developmental Science of Flourishing
This spring, the CCHD series will look at the intersection of research on children’s resilience,
thriving, and positive development to identify key themes and conceptual boundaries in the
interdisciplinary study of children’s flourishing. If you have input regarding potential speakers or
topics of interest, please let us know. Our committee includes Andrea Hussong (chair), Jennifer
Coffman, Phil Costanzo, Jamie Hanson, Melissa Lippold, Jonathan Tudge, and Bob Whitaker. We
will continue to meet on Mondays 2:00-3:30 for this series and hope to see you there.
Post-Doctoral
CCHD Mentor(s)
Hillary Langley
Andrea Hussong
Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology, 2013
Jamie Hanson
Ahmad Hariri
Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology, 2014
Andrew Schaper
Dan Bauer,
Patrick Curran
Ph.D. in Educational Methodology,
Policy, and Leadership, 2014
University of Oregon
Sarah Trinh
Carolyn Halpern
Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology, 2014
University of MichiganAnn Arbor
Kate Norwalk
Jill Hamm,
Jennifer Coffman,
Peter Ornstein
Ph.D. in School Psychology, 2013
Pennsylvania State
University
Johnna Swartz
Ahmad Hariri
Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology, 2013
University of MichiganAnn Arbor
Pre-Doctoral
CCHD Mentor
Vanessa Castro
Amy Halbertstadt
Developmental Psychology
North Carolina State
University
Meredith Eastman
Vangie Foshee
Nadia Huq
Gabriela Livas Stein
Kelly Sheppard
Carol Cheatham
Lucy Sorenson
Ken Dodge
Nicholas Wagner
Martha Cox
Health Behavior, Gillings School of Global
Public Health
Clinical Psychology
Developmental Psychology
Public Policy Studies, Sanford School of
Public Policy
Developmental Psychology
UNC-Chapel Hill
University of
Wisconsin-Madison
UNC-Chapel Hill
UNC-Greensboro
UNC-Chapel Hill
Duke University
UNC-Chapel Hill
Dr. Propper awarded two federal grants to study infant sleep
Dr. Cathi Propper, Assistant Director of Training and
Research at the Center for Developmental Science,
received funding for two new projects on the
development of sleep in infants. Her work builds on
previous lab-based findings that sleep quantity, quality
and problems affect overall health in infants and
behavioral problems in young children. Taking this
research out of the lab, Propper’s research uses
innovative methods and unobtrusive technology to
capture infant sleep through naturalistic observation in
the home.
The first study of its kind, infants will wear monitors to
record their movement through the night and
researchers will set up inconspicuous video recording
devices to track infants’ sleep and caregiving behaviors
when infants are 3 and 6 months of age. Additionally,
Propper’s team will collect data on physiological
indicators of infants’ abilities to “self-soothe” - a critical
component of infants’ sleep. Through these methods,
Propper will determine whether self-regulation during
the day is associated with nighttime sleep quality in
infants.
For example, one of her studies seeks to understand
why African American children appear to get less sleep
than European American children. Propper and her
research team are interested in potential racial/ethnic
differences in both physiological functioning and
nighttime parenting behavior which may contribute to
sleep disparities.
Propper is also extending this methodology to study the
role of sleep, self-regulation, and parenting as related to
prenatal cigarette exposure. Despite widely known
health risks, recent evidence indicates up to 15% of
women smoke during pregnancy. Propper is interested
in better understanding how prenatal cigarette
exposure affects infant emotion, cognition, and
behavior over the first year of life. To do this, her team
will follow women through their pregnancies and over
the first 9 months of their child’s life.
Proper’s work has provided rich training opportunities
for CDS-affiliated students. Recently, graduate students
in UNC-CH’s Developmental Psychology program, Nick
Wagner (CCHD pre-doc) and Marie Camerota, received a
grant from the Center of Regulatory Research on
Tobacco Control to include a focus on mothers’ ecigarette use during pregnancy within Propper’s studies.
They will examine, for the first time, e-cigarette use
during pregnancy and differences in how much nicotine
is delivered to the fetus from e-cigarettes versus
traditional cigarettes.
This trio of studies will provide critical information about
how prenatal experience, infant’s physiology, and
parenting behaviors contribute to infants’ sleep over the
first year of life. In the long term, Propper’ work will
provide a basis for interventions to improve infant
health outcomes.
We entered the fall with a burst of activity. Here are a few highlights.
In addition to a large entering class of fellows, we welcomed Dr. Patricio Cumsille who is spending a semester
leave from Pontifical Catholic University in Santiago, Chile with Duke University researchers and the Center for
Developmental Science. In addition, Dr. Noa Gueron-Sela is visiting the Center on a two year postdoctoral
fellowship to support international study away from her home in Israel. Look for opportunities to interact with
these scholars around consortium and other upcoming activities.
Thanks to Jennifer Coffman, Cathi Propper, Mike Shanahan, and Amy Briceno for their incredible efforts in
submitting the NICHD T32 renewal for the CCHD training program over the summer. This proposal goes to review
in November and Council in early spring. Because we are unsure of our funding for next year, recruitment of new
postdoctoral fellows will be delayed this year. We will keep you informed as we know more.
As you may have seen in the newspaper headlines, Centers and Institutes at UNC-CH have come under increasing
scrutiny in recent months. In response, we have been asked to provide data that supports our mission and impact
in a variety of ways. Next year, the CDS will undergo formal review from the university. We will take this year to
collect data in preparation for this process. We appreciate your cooperation in advance.
We plan to offer a half-day training event on Integrative Data Analysis to CDS faculty and fellows. This
methodology provides a framework for conducting pooled data analysis on item-level data even when
measurement across contributing studies varies. Look for an announcement and registration for the event soon.
As always, we look forward to hearing from you about ways in with the Center can support your efforts and I look
forward to seeing you in Monday Consortium.