Fellows: 2004-2005

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Dr. Courtney B. Ferrell
Dr. Ferrell is an Executive Branch Policy Fellow at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in the Division of Services and Intervention Research (DSIR), where she is working on research and policy issues related to autism. Dr. Ferrell received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology with a focus in child development from the University of Maryland at College Park. While at the University of Maryland, she provided clinical services and conducted research regarding children and adolescents with social anxiety disorder at the Maryland Center for Anxiety Disorders. She recently completed a clinical internship at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where she worked with children and families in community, school, inpatient, and outpatient settings.

Dr. Valerie Maholmes
Dr. Maholmes is continuing her Executive Branch fellowship for a second year at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), completing various rotations that are coordinated through the Office of Extramural Policy, where she will be learning in greater depth the connections between research, policy and practice. Dr. Maholmes holds a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from Howard University, and also completed a program of advanced study in school psychology concentrating in psychometrics. She comes from the Yale University Child Study Center where she was the Director of Research and Policy for the Comer School Development Program and the Irving B. Harris Assistant Professor of Child Psychiatry—an endowed professorial chair for social policy.

Dr. Edward Metz
Dr. Metz is an Executive Branch Fellow at the Institute for Education Sciences (IES) in the U.S. Department of Education. Dr. Metz holds a Ph.D. in Human Development from the Catholic University of America, where he directed a 2-year longitudinal study assessing the impact of a community service requirement on high school students' civic engagement. In the past few years, Dr. Metz has also performed research that has examined policies that promote youth involvement in community service around the world. His other interests include social development, research on school-based interventions, and education policy and analysis.

Dr. Jonathan C. Miles
Dr. Miles is a Congressional fellow working in Senator Harkin’s office. During his previous SRCD Executive Branch fellowship, Dr. Miles worked on Head Start research at the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) in the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation. He received his Ph.D. from Arizona State University in Clinical Psychology with an emphasis on child and family issues. While at ASU, Dr. Miles worked at the Prevention Research Center where he helped develop and evaluate programs designed to enhance children’s positive functioning in the face of stressful life experiences. He completed a community mental health internship at the Center for Behavioral Health, in Bloomington, IN, where he provided clinical inpatient and outpatient services with children and adolescents.

Dr. Dawn Ramsburg
Dr. Ramsburg is an Executive Branch fellow at the Child Care Bureau in the Administration for Children and Families (ACF). She brings a wealth of state-level policy research experience to her fellowship, having conducted several policy-relevant research projects for the Illinois Department of Human Services over the past five years. Dr. Ramsburg earned her Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. With interests that link child care research and policy, she has conducted research on child care supply and demand, child care workforce issues, and child care market issues.

Dr. Melba Reed
Dr. Reed is spending her Executive Branch fellowship at the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) in the Office of the Director of the National Institutes of Health. She comes to this program from Virginia Commonwealth University, where she received a PhD in Social Psychology with an emphasis on culturally competent programs for youth. Dr. Reed recently completed a post-doctoral fellowship with the Center for Cultural Experiences in Prevention at Virginia Commonwealth University. As a post-doctoral fellow at VCU, she conducted needs assessments that are being used to inform the development and implementation of local HIV/AIDS and substance abuse prevention programs.

Dr. Sara Vecchiotti
Dr. Vecchiotti is a Congressional fellow working in Senator Bingaman’s office. She has a doctorate in applied developmental psychology from Fordham University and a law degree from New York Law School. Dr. Vecchiotti was previously a Barbara Paul Robinson Fellow at the Foundation for Child Development, a Putting Children First Fellow at Teachers College, Columbia University, an Urban Education and Child Development Fellow at the Yale Child Study Center, and a Bush Fellow at the Bush Center for Social Policy and Child Development. Her research interests include program evaluation, early education, and the welfare of families with low-incomes.

Dr. Anne Wolf
As an Executive Branch Fellow, Dr. Wolf is working on child care issues in the Child and Youth Policy
Division of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) in the Department of
Health and Human Services. She has a doctorate in Human Development and Psychology from Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her research has focused on child care selection, Head Start quality, and language and literacy development. She was formerly a teacher for infants and toddlers.