Fellows: 2007-2008

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Lily Alpert, Ph.D.
Dr. Alpert is a Congressional Fellow in the office of Senator Hillary Clinton. Dr. Alpert completed her Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Studies at the University of Connecticut in May 2007. Prior to entering UConn, Dr. Alpert worked in the public foster care system in her hometown, New York City. She carried this experience into her doctoral studies, crafting a research program in child welfare policy and services, with a specific focus on foster care and the implementation of family-centered practice. During graduate school, Dr. Alpert published papers on policy and practice topics such as the Adoption and Safe Families Act and the experiences of biological parents of children in foster care. Her research projects included studies of the New York and Connecticut child welfare systems, as well as research on behalf of Connecticut's Office of the Child Advocate. Dr. Alpert is interested in continuing research on the public foster care system, particularly in the areas of instrument design, program evaluation, and reunification-focused policy initiatives.

Dara Blachman, Ph.D.
Dr. Blachman is a second year Executive Branch Fellow at the Office for Behavioral and Social Sciences Research in the Office of the Director at the National Institutes of Health. Here, she will continue to be involved in a range of cross-cutting initiatives, including in the areas of Dissemination and Implementation Science and Health Disparities. Dr. Blachman’s research interests center around understanding the interactive role of peer, family, and community/cultural influences on children’s socio-emotional adjustment and mental health, with an emphasis on the promotion of healthy development among minority children living in poverty. Reflective of her desire to conduct research that attempts to bridge the gap between science, policy, and practice, Dr. Blachman has been involved in several community-based, collaborative efforts in the areas of school-based mental health services, family-based HIV prevention programs, and foster parent retention. Dr. Blachman received her Ph.D. in Clinical/Community Psychology from the University of California, Berkeley. She completed her predoctoral internship at the Institute for Juvenile Research (IJR) at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Family Institute and School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University.

Kathleen Dwyer, Ph.D.
Prior to her selection as an SRCD Executive Branch Fellow, Dr. Dwyer was a post-doctoral research associate at the Laboratory for the Study of Child and Family Relationships at the University of Maryland. She received her B.A. in Psychology from George Washington University, her M.S. in Human Development and Family Studies from Penn State University, and her Ph.D. in Human Development, Developmental Sciences, from the University of Maryland. Her research has centered on the predictors of children's social and emotional adjustment, with a focus on parenting and parent-child relationships. Dr. Dwyer has explored the predictors of early social competence and problem behaviors, attachment in middle childhood, and links among children's relationships. During her fellowship she will be working in the area of child care research.

Layla E. Esposito, Ph.D.
Dr. Esposito is an Executive Branch Fellow working in the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Dr. Esposito completed her Ph.D. in Social Psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). During this time, she coordinated research evaluating violence prevention programs, and a culturally enhanced drug and sex education program in middle schools. She received her Masters in Clinical Psychology (MA) and undergraduate degree in Developmental Psychology (BA). Dr. Esposito’s other research interests have included peer victimization, aggression, psychosocial function and adjustment in children, and child psychopathology. In addition, she has been involved in various research projects with the Infant Studies Unit at the University of Sussex, the Child Conduct Clinic at Yale University, and Bradley Children’s Hospital at Brown University. While completing her graduate studies, Dr. Esposito also taught numerous undergraduate psychology courses at VCU.

Glenetta Hudson Harris, Ph.D.
Dr. Harris is an Executive Branch Policy Fellow at the Office of Head Start and the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation in the Administration for Children and Families. Dr. Harris received her doctorate in clinical psychology at the University of Michigan. She has worked as a research investigator at the Program for Research on Black Americans where among other things she served as a liaison between PRBA and the Annie E. Casey foundation transferring research at PRBA to the Casey community. At Michigan, Harris examined the prevalence of multiple forms of parental adversity, child socio-emotional and behavioral outcome and parenting resilience among urban African American Head Start families. Dr. Harris has been the recipient of the Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship, American Psychological Association Minority Fellowship Program, and the Minority International Research Training Fellowship. Her policy and research interests include race, racial socialization, early child education, socio-cultural resources and the mental health of poor and low-income families.

Michele M. Mazzocco, Ph.D.
Dr. Mazzocco is serving as a Congressional Fellow in the office of Senator Bingaman during her sabbatical from her faculty position at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine/Kennedy Krieger Institute. Dr. Mazzocco received her doctorate from Arizona State University, Department of Psychology, and completed postdoctoral studies at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. Her academic interests concern cognitive development in typically developing children and in children with learning difficulties. Through a prospective longitudinal study she has carried out for over 10 years, much of her own research has focused on characterizing mathematical learning ability and disabilities. Her work has specifically demonstrated how the use of different definitions of mathematics disability significantly influences research outcomes. Among her publications on these and other topics, Dr. Mazzocco recently published two co-edited books, “Why is Math So Hard for Some Children? The Nature and Origins of Children’s Mathematical Learning Difficulties and Disabilities,” and “Neurogenetic Developmental Disorders: Variation of Manifestation in Childhood.” Dr. Mazzocco policy interests include early childhood and mathematics education.

Behnosh Najafi, Ph.D.
Dr. Najafi is a second-year Executive Branch Fellow at the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation in the Administration for Children and Families. She received her doctorate in Developmental Psychology from the University of California, Santa Cruz. At OPRE, Dr. Najafi is interested in bridging programming efforts and socio-cultural perspectives on children’s development to create culturally appropriate pedagogy for language minority children. In her second year of the fellowship program she will continue to lead efforts in organizing a roundtable meeting with prominent researchers, federal staff and practitioners to assess current thinking regarding how to improve literacy outcomes for young, low-income language minority children (0 to 5 years of age). Broadly speaking, Dr. Najafi’s research interests include articulating and building empirical support for theories of children’s socialization and learning across cultural communities. Her previous work has compared modes of children’s social interaction across first and second generation Mexican- heritage triads as well as triads from European- heritage backgrounds and linked them to the routine practices of their family and community settings.

Nicole Gardner Neblett, Ph.D.
Dr. Neblett is an Executive Branch Fellow for the Department of Health and Human Services in the Child and Youth Policy Division of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE). Her work at ASPE includes analyzing and monitoring research on barriers to employment among low-income parents and the prevention of youth risk behaviors. Before working at ASPE, Dr. Neblett completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the National Poverty Center in the School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. During her post-doctoral fellowship, she investigated the links between single mothers’ experiences with welfare and work and the social and cognitive well-being of their children. Dr. Neblett earned her doctorate in Developmental Psychology from the University of Michigan, where her research focused on the effects of parental job experiences on adolescents’ future orientation. Her policy interests include welfare, the effects of poverty on children, the school-to-work transition, and work-family balance.

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