Dr. Nicole Perry Receives Victoria S. Levin Award for Early Career Success in Young Children’s Mental Health

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We are pleased to announce that Dr. Nicole Perry (University of Texas at Austin) is the recipient of the 2022 Victoria S. Levin Award. 
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Nicole Perry
Dr. Nicole Perry, University of Texas at Austin
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Dr. Nicole Perry is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin. Her selected mentor is Dr. Kathryn Lemery-Chalfant. Dr. Perry holds a B.S. in Psychology from Arizona State University and a Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Studies from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She also completed a NIH funded Postdoctoral Research Training Fellowship at the University of Minnesota at the Institute of Child Development.   

Her program of research examines how environmental contexts and the caregiver–child relationship impact the early development of biological and behavioral mechanisms underlying the regulation of cognition and emotion, and subsequently, how these early self-regulatory processes shape children’s mental health trajectories and resilience to stress. She assesses autonomic nervous system functioning, neural connectivity, and hypothalamic-pituitary adrenal axis responding, in addition to employing behavioral observation techniques, to investigate longitudinal questions of developmental process.

Her work under this award will include a comprehensive approach to studying the contribution of children’s sleep health, both behaviorally and physiologically, to the early development of emotion regulation and executive functioning. Findings will also yield a better understanding of developmental pathways linking commonly experienced childhood adversities to children’s sleep in order to identify early mechanisms that longitudinally predict child psychopathology and adjustment. 

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About the Victoria S. Levin Award

The Victoria S. Levin Award for Early Career Success in Young Children’s Mental Health Research was established to honor and carry forward the focus of Victoria S. Levin’s life's work in scientific research addressing young children’s mental health. Honoring Vicki’s 30 years of distinguished service at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the award’s aim is to heighten the chances of early success in achieving NIH funding for developmentally-informed research that addresses the early foundations of children’s mental health and well-being. The Victoria S. Levin Award is made possible by the donations of hundreds of Vicki’s friends, colleagues, and family members.