Announcing the 2025 Scholars and Mentors for the Towards 2044: Horowitz Early Career Scholar Program

Dr. Miller is an Associate Professor and the Provost Faculty Research Scholar for Institutional Transformation at the University of Mississippi. Her research program focuses on early cognitive development, with an emphasis on executive function (EF). Her work aims to explore the emergence and development of this foundational cognitive skill within a broader sociocultural context. She has work examining how early communicative and linguistic skills support the emergence of cognitive control across different cultural contexts; how executive function relates to social functioning in friendships, social problem solving, and social cognition; and how EF relates to creative cognition. Her current work is focused on examining foundations of early EF and examining the effectiveness of mindfulness-based interventions on social-emotional development within a preschool curriculum across multiple and diverse contexts.

Maria Calderon Leon is a doctoral student in Developmental Psychology at the University of California, Davis. She earned a B.S. in Psychobiology from UCLA in 2020. Her research takes a lifespan approach from childhood to emerging adulthood to elucidate how we shape and are shaped by our affective experiences and our close relationships. As a Latine, first-generation student, Maria is committed to empowering underrepresented individuals in higher education. She has mentored undergraduates for over four years and is actively involved in service at UC Davis.  

While at UCLA, Maria was a research assistant in Dr. Jennifer Silvers’ lab, contributing to studies on social decision-making and well-being in emerging adulthood. She was also a research assistant in Dr. Bridget Callaghan’s lab, studying links between early life adversity and affective neurodevelopment. From 2021–2023, she was the lab manager for the UC Irvine Measuring Undergraduate Success Trajectories project, researching contributors to undergraduate success. Now, as a doctoral student in Dr. Kristin Lagattuta’s Mind-Emotion Development Lab, Maria investigates how children and adults predict, experience, and misjudge their emotions. In other work, she examines how loneliness and sense of belonging in college vary as a function of friend network characteristics

Andrea Donis (she/her/hers) is a clinical psychology doctoral student at Loyola University Chicago. She received her B.A. in Social Welfare from the University of California, Berkeley and her M.A. in Clinical Psychology from Loyola University Chicago. Andrea’s research interests span across basic and implementation science. On one end, she is interested in understanding the impact of adversity (e.g., trauma exposure, immigrant-related stress) among Latine immigrant-origin youth, with a particular interest in understanding how family-level (e.g., parenting, culture) factors affect this relationship. She is also interested in investigating the implementation and effectiveness of school- and community-based, trauma-informed interventions for U.S. Latine immigrant-origin youth and families, with a particular interest in evaluating their cultural responsiveness, acceptability, and sustainability. Through this line of research, she aims to adequately contextualize the lived experiences of U.S. Latine immigrant-origin youth and capture the intersectionality of these experiences based on individual-level differences (e.g., gender, ethnicity, immigration status), to advocate for culturally relevant, trauma-informed mental health care for this population. As a bilingual clinician, Andrea also aims to increase the cultural responsiveness and accessibility of mental health services for underserved Spanish-speaking families. In the future, she hopes to focus her line of research on unaccompanied immigrant minors from Central America, as this continues to be an underserved immigrant group with unique and complex needs. To this end, she is also interested in translating her research to inform policy-level changes in the sociopolitical landscape.

Felicia Gutierrez (she/her) is a doctoral candidate in the Community and Applied Developmental Psychology program at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). She currently works under the mentorship of Dr. Josefina Bañales and serves as a graduate research assistant in the CAMBIAR Collective, a lab that emphasizes community-based youth participatory research. Felicia earned her Master’s in Couple and Family Therapy from the University of Oregon in 2021 before deciding to pursue a career in mental health research. This shift in career trajectory resulted directly from her work as a school therapist in both middle and high schools, where she witnessed firsthand the needs of youth of color in academic settings. Her research primarily explores the interconnectedness of mental health, school-based ethnic-racial socialization, and the development of critical consciousness, particularly in the lives of Latine youth. 

Outside of research, Felicia treasures her role as a daughter, sister, friend, and auntie. She holds above all else her community of loved-ones and is committed to staying grounded in the values and people that have shaped her purpose. In her spare time she enjoys watching horror, reading fiction novels, and cuddling her kitty, Iggy Biggz. 

Precious is a third year Developmental Science Ph.D. student in the Human Development and Family Science Department at North Dakota State University. Her research focuses on emotional well-being, personality disorders, and coping strategies among children aged 0 to 10 years. Under the mentorship of Dr. Joel Hektner, she is exploring the role of sleep problems in mediating the link between maternal depression and child aggressive behavior. She is also working with Dr. Sean Brotherson to evaluate and compare the effectiveness of early childhood parent education programs. In addition, she is collaborating with Dr. Leanna McWood on a meta-analysis exploring how parental coping strategies influence youth coping behaviors. She received her B.S in Psychology and M.S in Child Rights and Childhood Studies from Africa University. She worked as a volunteer care worker for homeless seniors, prison rehabilitation assistant, and child protection intern. These experiences strengthened her passion for working with children to help prevent instability later in life and foster resilience. Her goal is to contribute to the development of evidence-based and culturally relevant prevention and intervention programs that enhance the well-being of at-risk children and adopt them to improve the lives of children and their families in Zimbabwe.

Ann Shun Swanson is a first-year PhD student in Social Welfare at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She specializes in child welfare and foster care research, with a focus on leveraging large-scale longitudinal administrative data to uncover patterns of cumulative adversity, map life trajectories, and identify opportunities for prevention and intervention along the child welfare continuum. As an Asian, first-generation college student with a psychiatric disability and a survivor of childhood maltreatment and domestic violence, Ann embodies multiple underrepresented identities that deeply inform her scholarship. Having personally navigated the foster care system, Ann’s lived experiences provide a unique and deeply personal perspective that drive her commitment to reshape child welfare policies through rigorous, data-driven research. Her work aims to critically examine both the harms and essential functions of the child welfare system in order to promote equity and ensure that the wellbeing of system-involved youth remain at the center of policy discussions.

I grew up in Guatemala with my six siblings and my parents.  My dad was an engineer, and my mother graduated high school but could not afford university, so she became a secretary. My family's heritage includes Mexican, Mayan, Spanish, and German ancestry.  In 1975, I graduated from high school and came to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro to major in premed.  My English was terrible, but with the help of friends and professors, I muddled through my classes and social activities.  I fell in love with psychology and completed my BA and MA there.  I wanted to go home after this, but there were no jobs in developmental psychology. Therefore, I went to the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota for my PhD. I teach at the University of California at Santa Cruz, where I have been for the last 30 years.  I have two amazing adopted young adult daughters, and we visit our family in Guatemala yearly. Mentoring is one of my favorite activities, and it keeps me going; in 2019, I received one of three inaugural mentorship awards from the Spencer Foundation.  I have an active program of research, and my doctoral students and undergraduate research assistants use mixed methods to study a variety of topics about first-generation college students, how identity intersectionalities contextualize minoritized students' transition to and through university, and how farmworker families endure despite climate change and a hostile political situation.

Dr. Natasha Chaku is an Assistant Professor at Indiana University's Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. She earned her PhD in Developmental Psychology at Fordham University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Michigan. Dr. Chaku is interested in understanding how pubertal development is associated with cognition, health, and wellbeing across the lifespan and how links between puberty and lifespan outcomes differ across different social contexts. To investigate these questions, she uses intensive longitudinal assessments (e.g., daily diary), physiological data collection (e.g., saliva), and behavioral assessments (e.g., neurocognitive testing) alongside secondary data analyses and community-orientated data collection (e.g., youth participatory action research) to better understand youth’s lived experiences. Dr. Chaku has translated her work for a variety of audiences via blogs, videos, articles, and presentations for community organizations.

Dr. Alan Meca (él/he/him) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology in the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). He received his Ph.D. in Developmental Science from Florida International University in 2014 and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Miami. Broadly, his expertise is in identity development, acculturation, cultural stress, and positive youth development. Although his research has focused generally on identity development, most of his work has been on cultural identity development and acculturation among ethnic/racial minoritized youth, particularly among Hispanic/Latinx populations. Towards this end, his research agenda has focused on identity development and cultural stressors and their effects on health risk behaviors, mental health, and educational achievement. In pursuit of this research agenda, he has published over 80 peer-reviewed manuscripts focused on personal, ethnic/racial, and national identity and on the cultural dynamics among Hispanic/Latinx families. Currently, his research agenda is focused on refining measures of cultural identity, understanding the processes that govern how ethnic/racial minoritized youth navigate their cultural environment (e.g., code-switching, cultural frame switching), and identifying ways we can support youth experiencing cultural stressors such as discrimination, bicultural stress, and negative context of reception. 

Dr. Jingjing Sun is an Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Montana. Her research centers on supporting minoritized children’s cognitive, social, and emotional development with strengths-based approaches. Collaborating with community members and interdisciplinary colleagues in the U.S. and China, she investigates the impact of broader ecological systems, including culture, land, community, and tribal sovereignty, on children’s learning and social-emotional well-being. She also examines how to support teacher learning, well-being, and integration of discussion-based pedagogies through coaching and sustained professional development. Dr. Sun specializes in designing mixed-methods research to understand learning and development from different strands of data. Committed to supporting early-career scholars, she is excited to join the SRCD Towards 2044 program as a mentor again for the fourth year. 

Dr. Chenyi Zhang is an associate professor of Early Childhood and Elementary Education at Georgia State University. His research explores contextual, cognitive, and emotional factors influencing children's early literacy development, as well as early childhood educators' professional growth. As an early interventionist, he designs and evaluates classroom-based literacy intervention programs that support young children's literacy development and creates professional learning programs to enhance educators' teaching practices.  

He collaborates internationally with scholars from Asian countries, such as China and Japan, to study cross-cultural differences in early literacy development and literacy instruction. Currently, Zhang is researching how young children develop an interest in writing and exploring cultural differences in teachers' writing instruction between China and the U.S. He also leads a research team investigating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on young children's and parents' stress levels in the U.S. and China.  

Zhang earned a Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Studies with a focus on developmental studies from Purdue University in 2013, and an M.S. in Human Development and Family Studies from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 2008.