WHO ARE WE?

This website is designed first and foremost as a center of information for students interested in adolescent adjustment and development.  This section of the website, Who are WE, contains professional sketches of student members who wish to be considered a resource to other students or organizations who may visit this website.  We hope that you will be both a user of and contributor to this portion of the site.

As a contributor, please send a short professional sketch of yourself: your name, position, professional interests, and areas of focus. Also, please include your contact information so that users of this website may contact you as a resource (*note: provide only the contact information which you are comfortable sharing).  We have included bios of the student representatives as examples. 

Student Representatives Mission Statement

SRA Student Professionals

Samantha Dockray, Student Representative, 2006-2010
Samantha received a Ph.D. in Biobehavioral Health from The Pennsylvania State University in 2006. Samantha received a B.Science in Psychology and Physiology from Victoria University, Australia and was also awarded an Honors degree in Biomedical Science for her research on the associations between individual psychological attributes of the person and physiological states. Samantha’s research focuses on how the experiences and attributes of the adolescent can influence health through changes in behaviors and physiological function. In particular, Samantha’s dissertation study examined how trajectories of health, especially weight status, may be deflected at the time of adolescence. Her work included an examination of the associations between stressors, in the form of daily hassles, responses to stressors (e.g. cortisol secretion) and weight status in adolescents. Samantha was fortunate to have received a Kligman dissertation grant, and a Hintz Grant to support her studies.
Samantha’s research is centred on examinations of psychophysiological processes that contribute to trajectories of health and well-being, especially processes associated with stress and adaptation to challenge. Samantha’s programme of research has been enhanced by the integration of both biological and behavioural conceptual frameworks, and her research aims are framed within an interdisciplinary perspective. Currently Samantha is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at University College London, in the Psychobiology Group, in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health. Samantha may be contacted at s.dockray@ucl.ac.uk.

Laura Wray-Lake, Student Representative, 2008-2012
Laura is working toward a Ph.D. in Human Development & Family Studies from The Pennsylvania State University. She graduated with a M.S. in Experimental Psychology in 2004 from Bucknell University and a B.A. in Psychology from Wake Forest University with honors in 2002. Her research focuses on adolescent civic value development and the role of the family in cultivating these values. Laura’s graduate studies have included research experience on a variety of projects and training in quantitative, longitudinal methods as well as person-oriented methodological approaches. Her dissertation will explore the processes of value socialization within families, adolescent value development, and links between values and adolescents’ socially responsible outcomes. Laura can be contacted at ldw134@psu.edu.

Jacqueline Nguyen, Student Representative, Finance Committee
Jacqueline Nguyen is a doctoral student in the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Department of Educational Psychology (Human Development area). She graduated with a B.A. in Psychology from University of Minnesota in 2000. Her research focuses on parent-adolescent-peer linkages in immigrant families and the ways universal developmental processes (such as identity formation and autonomy development) are negotiated when parents and adolescents have divergent conceptualizations of these processes and when these processes play out in culturally-embedded contexts. She is thrilled to be serving as the student representative for the SRA finance committee until 2010. Jacqueline can be contacted at jnguyen2@wisc.edu.

Melinda Leidy, Student Representative, Awards Committee
Melinda graduated with her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology in 2007 from the University of California at Riverside. She also received a M.A. in Educational Psychology from the University of California at Riverside in 2002 and her B.A. in psychology with honors from Scripps College in 2001. Melinda is currently a post-doctoral research fellow at the Southern California Academic Center of Excellence on Youth Violence Prevention at the University of California at Riverside. Melinda's research interests focus primarily on how marital relations (both marital conflict and marital satisfaction) impact child outcomes over time. Her dissertation examined the reciprocal relationship between mothers' and fathers' marital satisfaction and conflict and child outcomes over a three-year period in Mexican American and European American families. She is currently working on how marital relations and parenting may impact positive youth development. Melinda can be contacted at melinda.leidy@ucr.edu.

Dana Wood, Student Representative, Membership Committee
Dana is a fifth-year doctoral student in the Developmental Psychology program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She earned her B.A. in Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin in 1997. Prior to entering graduate school, she taught elementary school in Los Angeles. Dana’s research focuses on the development achievement motivation in African American children and adolescents. She is
particularly interested in understanding how contextual factors shape the achievement and achievement-related outcomes of African American boys. Dana is currently involved on a variety of projects, including two longitudinal studies that focus on the development of achievement motivation in African American youth across the transitions to middle
school and high school. She can be contacted at danawood@email.unc.edu.

Kathryn Monahan, Student Representative, Study Group Committee
Kathryn is a Ph.D. student at Temple University in developmental psychology. She completed her undergraduate work at the University of Portland. Her research focuses on adolescent risk-taking behaviors and psychopathology and the role of family, peers, and social institutions in altering trajectories of youth development. Kathryn is especially interested in the policy implications of work with high-risk youth. She is also interested in longitudinal methodology, particularly analytic strategies that approximate causal effects in survey research and analytic strategies that combine variable-centered and person-centered methodologies. Her dissertation examines the stability of social competence from early childhood to adolescence and tests how pubertal timing and school transition in early adolescence accentuate individual differences in social competence over time. Kathryn can be reached at kate.monahan@temple.edu.

Past Representatives