Director
gcarlo@uci.edu
Faculty Fellows
jeffrey.liew@tamu.edu
aramos@unmc.edu
slp5723@psu.edu
cestreit@unm.edu
Graduate Students & Recent Graduates
dr.lina.carpenter@gmail.com
About Lina
Lina recently graduated with her Ph.D. from University of California, Irvine’s School of Education, specializing in Human Development in Context. She has a B.S. in Fine Art from the University of California at Santa Cruz and an M.A. in Educational Psychology with a concentration in Early Childhood Education from California State University at Northridge. Her master’s thesis was centered around preschool teacher perceptions of the children in their class, problematic classroom behavior, and self-regulation. Lina’s current research examines how potential relationships between empathic traits and attitudes about social responsibility may influence prosocial tendencies. Her research interests also include emotional intelligence, compassion in educational contexts, classroom environments, and the impacts of stress.
alysiac@uci.edu
About Alysia
Alysia Cruz is a Ph.D. student at the University of California, Irvine’s School of Education, specializing in Human Development in Context. She received her B.S. in Psychology from Drexel University. She also earned her M.S. from Lehigh University in Developmental Psychology. Alysia explores how cultural values and acculturation shape the parenting practices and communication styles of Latino families in the U.S. She is interested in acculturative stress in developing youth, and how culture and socialization practices affect Latino students in the classroom.
rpartovi@uci.edu
About Roushanac
Roushanac Partovi is a Ph.D. student at the University of California, Irvine’s School of Education, specializing in Human Development in Context. She is interested in exploring how the developmental timing of adversity, supports, and assets influence prosocial development and educational outcomes among immigrant-origin youth. Prior to UCI, Roushanac received her Masters in Public Health at the George Washington University.
jeroos@mail.missouri.edu
About Joy
Joy Roos recently graduated with her Ph.D. from the University of Missouri, Columbia in the School of Education and Human Development. Her research program is directly influenced by her work as a social worker and advocate for minoritized youth and families in the Midwest. The main objective of her research is to understand the factors that facilitate or inhibit youth’s prosocial behaviors toward ethnic and racial outgroups with the goal of promoting positive intergroup relations and immigrant/minoritized youth well-being.
marixzat@uci.edu
About Marixza
Marixza Torres is a Ph.D. student at the University of California Irvine specializing in Human Development in Context (HDiC). She is interested in studying adolescent development, cultural influences, academic achievement, and family dynamics. Prior to UCI, Marixza received her B.A in Applied Psychology from Eastern Washington University. She was recently accorded an Honorable Mention from the 2020 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Foundation Program (NSF GRFP).
kathyt11@uci.edu
About Kathy
Kathy Tran is a Ph.D. student at the University of California, Irvine’s School of Education, specializing in Human Development in Context. She plans to research the multicultural experiences of students of color, their families, and students’ academic achievements. Before attending UC Irvine, Kathy received a B.A. in Psychology and was a Ronald E. McNair Scholar at California State University, Fullerton. As an undergraduate, she developed her McNair thesis that examined Southeast Asian American college students’ involvement in student cultural organizations and same-race and intraminority friendships as potential predictor variables of belonging.
rdvillar@uci.edu
About Ray
I started my academic journey at Santa Ana College in Santa Ana, CA. This is where I fell in love with asking questions, getting involved in science, and learning how research can impact the world around us. After graduating with my AA in Psychology, I transferred to UC Irvine to complete a BA in Psychology and Social Behavior. During my undergraduate program, I learned about the brain and started to question how addressing psychopathology could improve people’s quality of life. After graduating from UC Irvine, I enrolled in a School Psychology program at the College of William and Mary. After earning a MEd and EdS in School Psychology, I became a Nationally Certified School Psychologist (NCSP) and started working in prisons and schools throughout Virginia and Texas. While working in prisons and schools, I began to realize that experiences of trauma had huge impacts on individuals and their trajectories but in very different ways. Hearing that witnessing some violent act or being exposed to constant stress as a child put them on a path towards drugs, gangs, or homelessness became an all-too-common story in the prisons, many times from individuals who had incredible untapped potential for success in any academic or work environment. From there, I knew I wanted to better understand how trauma impacts our learning and memory so that we can create better educational, therapeutic, and scientific programming.
About Yolanda
Yolanda recently graduated from UCI with a degree in education. She is currently a graduate student in education at the University of Pennsylvania.
priscg4@uci.edu
About Priscilla
Priscilla recently graduated from UCI with a degree in psychological science. Her research interests include resilience and family well-being in Latine populations.
cerverak@uci.edu
About Kelsy
Kelsy is a Ph.D. student in the School of Education, specializing in Human
Development in Context, and holds a B.A. in Psychology and a B.A. in Anthropology
from UC Irvine. She was a post-baccalaureate coordinator for the Digital Learning
Lab where she gained extensive research experience working with bilingual
children and families, and researched the use of conversational agents in children’s
media to foster STEM learning. As a doctoral student, she plans to build upon her
experience with Latine communities to investigate culturally sustaining,
strength-based interventions that promote children’s STEM learning and
socio-emotional development.
tmerino@uci.edu
About Tere
Tere Merino is a Ph.D. student in the School of Education with a specialization in
Human Development in Context. She received her Bachelor’s degree in
Administration in Mexico and her MBA in Barcelona, Spain. She has been teaching
at the undergraduate and graduate levels for over 15 years. As a dedicated
university professor with over a decade of experience, her journey in academia has
offered her profound insights into the intricacies of the educational landscape. Through her interactions with students aged 18 to 23, she has encountered a significant number of individuals grappling with challenges deeply rooted in traditional educational paradigms. The difficulties they face in basic arithmetic, the underdevelopment of logical thinking skills, limited reading comprehension, and the complexity of summarizing ideas have underscored the importance of early intervention. To truly address these fundamental learning hurdles, it has become clear to her that we must initiate interventions at a much earlier stage in children’s development. These realizations have ignited her fervent passion for embarking on a Ph.D. in Education, driving her commitment to research and develop solutions that can transform educational practices from the ground up.
