FACULTY
APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

Susanne Denham, Ph.D. (sdenham@gmu.edu) ADP Professor & Program Director.
      Social and emotional development, developmental psychopathology, parenting. Dr. Denham has been an instructor at the University of Maryland, College Park, and a guest scientist at the National Institute of Mental Health Developmental Psychology Laboratory. Her teaching and research interests include basic processes of social emotional development, social cognition, social competence, particularly in young children, and developmental psychopathology (i.e., primary and secondary prevention of deviations from normal social-emotional development). She currently is conducting longitudinal research on the socialization of preschoolers's emotional competence. Her papers have appeared in Child Development, Developmental Psychology, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, Child Study Journal, International Journal of Behavioral Development, Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, and others.

Robert Pasnak, Ph.D. (rpasnak@gmu.edu) ADP Professor.
      Cognitive development, thinking and problem solving. Dr. Pasnak is a cognitive developmental psychologist whose teaching and research concern the development of children's thinking, particularly when they are young and handicapped or at risk for cognitive delays. In much of this research, the Piagetian developmental framework has been used to help children reach age norms in cognitive development. Dr. Pasnak recently has co-edited Emerging Themes in Cognitive Development, and has published research articles in Developmental Psychology, Education and Training in Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities, Infant Behavior and Development, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, Journal of Experimental Psychology, and Psychology in the Schools.

Koraly Perez-Edgar, Ph.D. (kperezed@gmu.edu) ADP Assistant Professor.
      Dr. Perez-Edgar received her AB in psychology from Dartmouth College and her M.A. and Ph.D. in psychology from Harvard University. Dr. Perez-Edgar's research focuses on the relations between temperament and psychopathology with an eye to potential moderating mechanisms. In conducting her work, Dr. Perez-Edgar has taken a multi-method approach involving direct observation of behavior, cognitive functioning, psychophysiology, and neuroimaging. She is the recipient of numerous awards including an NIMH K01 Career Development Award, a NARSAD Young Investigator Award, a Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship, and a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship. The website for the Cognition, Affect, and Temperament Lab has more information: http://mason.gmu.edu/~kperezed

Johannes Rojahn, Ph.D. (jrojahn@gmu.edu) ADP Professor.
      After completing a Fulbright-Hayes post-doctoral research fellowship at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, he taught at the University of Marburg (Germany), the University of Pittsburgh Medical School (Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic) and The Ohio State University (Nisonger Center for Developmental Disabilities) before accepting a position at GMU. He is currently the Director of the Center for Cognitive Development (http://ccd.gmu.edu).

His teaching and research has focused on persons with mental retardation and developmental disabilities (including Autism). Currently Dr. Rojahn's research lab pursues two programmatic lines of research [1] challenging behaviors and other forms of psychopathology (epidemiology, assessment, applied behavior analysis) and [2] socio-emotional aspects of mental retardation and its relationship to interpersonal functioning.

Dr. Rojahn has published more than 100 scientific articles and book chapters and has served as an Associate Editor for scientific journals such as Research in Developmental Disabilities and the American Journal on Mental Retardation. He is also editorial board member of the American Journal on Mental Retardation, Journal of Developmental and Physical Disabilities and Psychology Editor for Down Syndrome Quarterly.

Adam Winsler, Ph.D. (awinsler@gmu.edu) APD Professor.
      School readiness and child care among diverse low-income preschoolers; Private speech and self-regulation; bilingualism; attention deficit hyperactivity disorder; early childhood education. Dr. Winsler is an applied developmental psychologist with interests in children's transition to school, the development of self-regulation, children's private speech, Vygotskian sociocultural theory; bilingualism, parent-child interaction, and the prevention of behavior disorders. His current research explores childcare and school readiness among diverse, low-income, urban preschoolers; Private speech and self-regulation in typical children and those with ADHD or autistic spectrum disorders; Self-regulated learning and motivation among college students. See http://classweb.gmu.edu/awinsler for more information

AFFILIATED FACULTY

Hideko Bassett, Ph.D. (hhamada1@gmu.edu) Assistant Research Scientist.
     

Linda Chrosniak, Ph.D. (lchrosni@gmu.edu) Associate Professor.
     

Jane Flinn, Ph.D. (jflinn@gmu.edu) Associate Professor.
     

Elyse Lehman, Ph.D. (elehman@gmu.edu) ADP Professor Emeritus.
      Cognitive development, attention, memory, and problem solving, educational applications. Dr. Lehman has been a visiting scholar at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She is a cognitive developmentalist who is interested in the development of self-control in children. She currently is conducting research on the mechanisms by which children monitor and update their memories, and on individual differences in children's eyewitness accuracy and suggestibility, and on the development of attention in school-age children. Recent publications have appeared in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, Memory and Cognition, Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, and American Journal of Orthopsychiatry.

Jack Naglieri, Ph.D. (naglieri@gmu.edu) Professor.
     

Ellen Rowe, Ph.D. (erowe@gmu.edu) Assistant Professor.
     

Robert Smith, Ph.D. (bsmith@gmu.edu) Professor.
     

Henry Tran, Ph.D. (htrani@gmu.edu) Post Doctoral Student.
     

Patricia Wanschura, Ph.D. (pwanschu@gmu.edu) Visiting Associate Professor.
     

Heather Warren, Ph.D. (hkwarren@gmu.edu) Associate Research Professor.