Fellows: 2005-2006

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Dr. Allison Deschamps
Allison Deschamps is an Executive Branch Policy Fellow at the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation in Administration for Children and Families (ACF). During her fellowship, Dr. Deschamps is working on the Healthy Marriage Initiative and programs focused on fathering. Dr. Deschamps received her Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of Chicago. While at the University of Chicago, Dr. Deschamps served as a NICHD pre-doctoral fellow at the Population Research Center and as a Research Associate at the Alfred P. Sloan Center for Children, Parents and Work. Her research explores the predictors and effects of father involvement in married, cohabiting and nonresidential American families.

Dr. Gina Hijjawi
Dr. Hijjawi received her doctorate in community psychology from the University of Virginia (UVA). Her policy and research interests include low-income families, fatherhood, welfare policy, and women's issues. During graduate school, Dr. Hijjawi worked with the Public Defenders Office as an Assistant Sentencing Advocate, working with clients with substance abuse problems and metal illness. She also worked with the City of Charlottesville and Albemarle County (VA) Commission on Children and Families conducting a needs assessment to determine the needs of low-income families and children. She has also worked with Public/Private Ventures to evaluate programs serving fathers transitioning out of the criminal justice system, faith-based programs serving high-risk youth, and a mentoring and tutoring program for low-income children in urban schools. Dr. Hijjawi has recently worked at the American Psychological Association in the Public Policy Public Interest Office on legislative issues related to older adults, domestic violence, youth suicide prevention, and universal mental health screening for children. She is currently an Executive Branch fellow for the National Institute on Drug Abuse in the Prevention Research Branch.

Dr. Laura Hoard
Dr. Hoard is an Executive Branch Policy Fellow for the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) in the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation. Prior to her work with ACF, she worked on policy and program evaluations such as the evaluation of states' implementation of teacher quality provisions for the No Child Left Behind Act. Dr. Hoard received her Ph.D. in Family Studies and M.S. in Marriage and Family Therapy from the University of Maryland, College Park. She is a member of the NICHD-funded Research Network on Measuring Children's Activity in its Social Context. Her research interests include chronic illness, disability, and resilience within families and children.

Dr. Shadi Houshyar
Dr. Houshyar is a Congressional Fellow working in Senator Bingaman’s office. In the coming year, she will work on education and social policy initiatives, including Head Start, higher education, and TANF. She completed her graduate studies in Developmental Psychology at Yale University in May, 2005. Her research focused on understanding the pathways to resiliency in maltreated and high-risk children. Dr. Houshyar’s graduate research involved a longitudinal investigation of permanency planning in the state of Connecticut designed to evaluate an intervention program intended to minimize multiple placements, re-abuse, and re-entry into the child welfare system, and examine the impact of early trauma on child development. Her research was recognized by awards from Division 37 of the American Psychological Association (APA), the Section on Maltreatment of Division 37 of APA, and the American Psychological Association of Graduate Students. Dr. Houshyar has extensive experience working with families involved in the child welfare system and is particularly interested in the translation of developmental research into effective child welfare and family policy, mental health policy, and government programs, interventions, and prevention practices targeting high-risk families. Dr. Houshyar is a Fellow of the Bush Center in Child Development and Social Policy at Yale, and is currently an SRCD Congressional Fellow.

Dr. Darlene Kertes
Dr. Kertes recently concluded a National Science Foundation Fellowship at the University of Minnesota, where she was active in research and teaching. Before joining the graduate program at Minnesota, she worked at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), conducting basic science research. As a developmental psychologist, her work with internationally-adopted and birth children has focused on the effects of early life experiences on activity of a stress-sensitive neuroendocrine system, and on the policy implications of research findings on risks to healthy neurobehavioral development in children. Dr. Kertes is an Executive Branch Fellow at the Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research, where she is working on integrating behavioral and genetic/biomedical research initiatives.

Dr. Carmela Lomonaco
Dr. Lomonaco is an Executive Branch Fellow working in the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Southern California and has research interests in adolescent risk behaviors including the connection to popular culture. For the last three years, she served as the Assistant Director of LA Net, a practice-based research network in the USC Department of Family Medicine, where she specialized in research on health and health care disparities in pediatric populations. She has expertise in gang violence research; especially how environmental factors influence gang formation and persistence. Dr. Lomonaco is the past recipient of both the 2005 USC Urban/Global Fellowship for Adolescent Urban Homelessness and the 2004 SOPHE/CDC Violence and Injury Prevention Fellowship.

Dr. Amy Madigan
Dr. Madigan is an Executive Branch Policy Fellow at the Head Start Bureau of the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) assisting with the launch of a “Research to Practice” effort. She received her doctorate in applied developmental psychology from George Mason University where she conducted research on early childhood education interventions and school readiness, family conflict and violence, and the interaction of multiple family and community risks. As a former William A. Morrill Public Service Fellow at Caliber Associates, Dr. Madigan was involved in research on effective practices in child abuse prevention and child welfare. Her interests focus on the synthesis of developmental research, program development/evaluation, and evidence-based policy formulation for the promotion of child and family wellbeing.

Dr. Edward Metz
Dr. Metz is a second year Executive Branch Fellow at the Institute for Education Sciences (IES) in the U.S. Department of Education. In his position, Dr. Metz works on the Social and Character Development (SACD) multi-site evaluation program and manages the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. 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. Dawn Ramsburg
Dr. Ramsburg is a second year Executive Branch fellow at the Child Care Bureau in the Administration for Children and Families (ACF). Dawn will continue working on several projects begun in her first year, including work with the Good Start, Grow Smart Interagency Workgroup and providing guidance for states on such child care policy research issues as market rate surveys. 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. Purva Rawal
Dr. Rawal is a Congressional Fellow working in Senator Lieberman’s office. This year, she anticipates working on a wide range of health issues affecting Americans, including reducing healthcare disparities, improving federal infrastructure for translational research, the role of the federal government in facilitating health and medical assistance during times of disaster and emergency, and youth development. She recently completed her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology and a Predoctoral Fellowship in Health Services Research at Northwestern University's Feinberg Medical School. She has also worked with the Board on Children Youth and Families at the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine. She is interested in child and family health and mental health issues, improving healthcare service delivery, juvenile justice, positive youth development, child welfare, the effects of the media on child development, and early childcare and education. She has published articles and book chapters on several of these topics. Dr. Rawal is a Congressional Fellow of SRCD.

Dr. Sara Vecchiotti
Dr. Vecchiotti is an Executive Branch Fellow at the Child Care Bureau in the Administration for Children and Families. She has a doctorate in applied developmental psychology from Fordham University and law degree from New York Law School. Last year, Dr. Vecchiotti completed an SRCD Congressional Fellowship in the Office of Senator Jeff Bingaman. Previously, Dr. Vecchiotti was 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 care, and the welfare of families with low-incomes.

Dr. Anne Wolf
As a second year 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.