Fellows: 2000-2001

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Dr. Gretchen Butera
Dr. Butera was an SRCD Congressional Fellow for 2000-2001. She received her Ph.D. in Special Education and Early Childhood from the University of California at Santa Barbara. Previous to her fellowship, she was a professor at West Virginia University for eight years where she was involved in research on children in Appalachian communities with the Energy Express program. In 1998, she received a Frontiers of Research on Children, Youth, and Families award from the National Research Council for her ethnographic case study research with Energy Express. Dr. Butera has also worked with Head Start and Early Head Start programs and is particularly interested in the policy issues affecting at-risk children and families and the discrepancies in child development research dealing with special education. She worked as a Fellow in the office of Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM).

Dr. John Ogawa
Dr. Ogawa came to the Congressional Fellowship program from the University of Minnesota, where he worked for six years on evaluations of two national welfare-to-work programs: the New Chance Demonstration and the JOBS Program. Before he received his Ph.D. in Child Development from the University of Minnesota, he was a National Institute for Mental Health (NIMH) Predoctoral Fellow. In addition to his evaluative experiences with intervention programs, Dr. Ogawa has been involved in studies on normative development in high-risk mothers and children, as well as on normative peer relations in adolescents. He spent his fellowship working with House Representative Bobby Scott (D-VA).

Dr. Rhonda Boyd
Dr. Boyd was an Executive Branch Policy Fellow working with both the Administration for Children, Youth, and Families (ACYF) and the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Her work focused on the Head Start Mental Health Research consortium, which is a joint collaboration between ACYF and NIMH, in addition to a few projects she worked on concerning maternal depression at NIMH. She received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Iowa. Previous to the fellowship, Dr. Boyd was most recently a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Department of Mental Hygiene at the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health, where her research included prevention and intervention work, community violence, and anxiety disorders in children from diverse populations. While completing her postdoctoral research work, Dr. Boyd gathered clinical experience with her work as a consultant for the Starting Early/Starting Smart Partnership, conducting cognitive assessments with the Johns Hopkins University-Ashland Head Start children. Additionally, Dr. Boyd’s interests lie in child psychopathology, psychological assessments, social competence, and hearing-impaired children.

Dr. Jessica Campbell
Dr. Campbell was an SRCD Executive Branch Fellow at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). She worked with Dr. Vince Smeriglio at NIDA, focusing on program development in the area of developmental consequences of drug abuse during middle childhood, preadolescence, and adolescence. Dr. Campbell joined the program after completing a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), where she was involved with work on a longitudinal study on early child-care effects on children’s social, emotional, and cognitive development. Dr. Campbell obtained her Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Studies from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. While a doctoral candidate, Dr. Campbell worked with the National Child Abuse and Neglect Task Force, the Forum on Federally Funded Research in Child Abuse and Neglect, and completed an internship with the North Carolina Child Advocacy Institute. In addition to child abuse and violence, Dr. Campbell’s policy interests include parental socialization issues and children’s social development.

Dr. Brenda Jones Harden
Dr. Harden was an Executive Branch Fellow who worked in the Evaluation and Research Branch of the Administration for Children, Youth, and Families (ACYF) on research related to Early Head Start, Head Start home visitation, and children in the child welfare system. During her graduate career, Dr. Harden studied child development and social policy as a Bush Fellow at Yale University. After obtaining her Ph.D. in Developmental-Clinical Psychology from Yale University, Dr. Harden was an Assistant Professor for the Institute for Child Study at the University of Maryland. She also worked as a lead consultant for training and technical assistance at the Early Head Start National Resource Center. Earlier in her graduate career, Dr. Harden received her Masters of Social Work in Family and Child Welfare from New York University.

Dr. Karin Johnson
As an Executive Branch Fellow, Dr. Johnson worked with the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) Center on AIDS and Other Medical Consequences of Drug Abuse (CAMCODA). Her work there focused on the areas of pediatric neuroimaging and its applications, as well as on adolescent health and rural health issues. A certified pediatric nurse practitioner, Dr. Johnson received her Masters in Maternal and Child Health Nursing from the University of Maryland. After working with inpatient and community-based obstetrics and pediatrics for several years, Dr. Johnson obtained her Doctor of Public Health degree from Johns Hopkins University Department of Maternal and Child Health, School of Hygiene and Public Health. During her graduate studies, Dr. Johnson developed a family nursing program for rural communities and was Director of the Center for Adolescent Health at Salisbury State University. She came to the Fellowship program having most recently been the Assistant to the President of Salisbury State University. In addition to her nursing work with infants, her studies of rural adolescents, and work as Director of Grants and Sponsored Research, her public health consulting work has taken her to Kenya, Uganda, Estonia, and other places around the world.

Dr. Carole Kuhns
Dr. Kuhns worked as an SRCD Executive Branch Fellow with the Commissioner’s Office for Research and Evaluation (CORE) at the Administration for Children, Youth, and Families (ACYF). She was involved with the Early Head Start Research Study, which included an analysis of children participating in child care as well as Head Start and the collaboration between the child's Head Start program and child care program. Dr. Kuhns also be worked with the Child Care Bureau, on the new low-income research projects. Previous to her SRCD fellowship, Dr. Kuhns was the Director of Research and Evaluation for the Graduate Program of Public Administration and Policy at Virginia Polytechnical Institute and State University, where she was a principal investigator on welfare reform studies and on an evaluation study of the Child Care Plus program. Prior to that, Dr. Kuhns was an Assistant Professor for the Public Policy graduate program at Georgetown University, where she also developed the National Resource Center for Health and Safety in Child Care at the National Center for Education in Maternal Child Health. Dr. Kuhns received her Ph.D. in Child Development from the University of Maryland and also has a Masters in Child Psychiatric Nursing. In addition to her clinical work and teaching experiences, Dr. Kuhns is also interested in research on the relationship among childcare, parenting, and children’s development, as well as evaluation studies of welfare reform.

Dr. Ivelisse Martinez-Beck
Dr. Martinez-Beck was an SRCD Executive Branch Policy Fellow working with the Child Care Bureau at the Administration for Children, Youth, and Families (ACYF). Prior to her fellowship, she completed Ph.D.s in both Psychology and Linguistics at the University of Michigan. Her previous graduate education includes a Masters in Linguistics and a Masters in Applied Linguistics (ESL). Dr. Martinez-Beck has been involved in the study of developmental psycholinguistics, specifically the role of linguistic factors in the development of cognitive processes. Her research interests include bilingual studies in early language acquisition, cognitive development, social cognition development, and socio-cultural influences on cognition and language.

Dr. Melissa Welch-Ross
As an SRCD Executive Branch Policy Fellow, Dr. Welch-Ross worked with the Early Childhood Institute (ECI) of the Office for Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) in the Department of Education. Her primary responsibilities included assisting in the development of the research agenda for the Early Childhood Institute, writing synthesis papers on topics that informed that agenda, monitoring a portion of the research portfolio, and contributing to interagency initiatives on early childhood research and education. Dr. Welch-Ross earned her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology at the University of Florida. She completed a Pre-Doctoral Training Fellowship sponsored by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). As Assistant Professor of psychology at Georgia State University, Dr. Welch-Ross received a FIRST award from NIMH for her research on "The Social Construction of Autobiographical Memory." Dr. Welch-Ross’ other research and policy interests include the developmental processes affecting the accuracy of children’s eyewitness reports, early childhood memory experiences, and social-cognitive development.

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