Curricula Vitae in Psychology

Name	Personal Focus	Summary
Dr. Amit Almor Associate Professor	Psychology of language, language memory and attention, neuroscience of language and memory	Professor Almor's main research areas are psycholinguistics, neuroimaging of language and language impairments. Some specific areas in which he has conducted research are the processing of anaphoric expressions in discourse, sentence production and comprehension, lexical representations and processing, and the connection between language and memory performance in aging and in patients with Alzheimer's Disease.
Dr. Cheryl Annette Armstead Associate Professor	Cardiovascular health disparities, Cancer health disparities, Stress and cardiovascular disease	I am a tenured Associate Professor. I am director the USC Health Equity Laboratory, which focuses on a clinical-community based CBPR lifestyle intervention as it pertains to the behavioral and social determinants of African American stress-related health inequities. I am a core faculty member of the Cancer Prevention and Control Center and adjunct associate professor in Biostatistics and Epidemiology.
Meeta Banerjee Assistant Professor	the influence of contextual factors on parenting goals and practices in ethnic minority families, elucidate how ethnic-racial socialization may be adaptive for individuals, how association between ethnic-racial socialization & context varies from early to late adolescence	Meeta Banerjee received her Ph.D. in Ecological-Community Psychology with a specialization in Applied Developmental Science from Michigan State University in 2012. As a Jacobs Foundation Pathways to Adulthood postdoctoral fellow, she worked directly with Dr. Jacque Eccles at the University of Michigan and was also an NIH minority postdoctoral scholar. Prior to her Ph.D., she received her M.S.W. and B.A. in Psychology from the University of Michigan in 2003 and 2001, respectively.
Kimberly Dyan Becker Professor	extending the reach of effective psychosocial interventions for children and adolescents	Kimberly Becker holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the College of William & Mary, a Doctorate of Philosophy in Psychology from the University of Arizona, and a Clinical Respecialization Certificate from the University of Hawaii. She completed her clinical internship at the Kennedy Krieger Institute and postdoctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD.
Dr. Rosemarie M Booze Professor	Neurosciences	Dr. Booze's research focuses on the mechanisms by which the central nervous system adapts to injury and disease. In one set of studies, we are investigating the neurobiology of drug abuse. The molecular mechanisms which underlie chronic drug abuse are being studied with respect to the dopaminergic receptor systems in the brain.
Jessica Bradshaw Associate Professor	quantifying the emergence of, and interrelations between, social behavior, visual attention, identifying aberrant neurodevelopmental pathways that lead to the emergence of ASD, translating these basic findings to early detection and intervention strategies for ASD	Dr. Bradshaw received her PhD in Clinical, Counseling, and School Psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara after which time she completed her postdoctoral work at the Marcus Autism Center, Emory University School of Medicine. She has been involved in autism research since her undergraduate work in Cognitive Science at the University of California, San Diego and her post-baccalaureate work at the Yale Child Study Center.
Michelle Patrice Brown, PhD Assistant Professor	Understanding how interpersonal relationships influence victimized children, Elucidating biopsychosocial factors that influence treatment outcomes for victimized children, Investigating the trauma conferring impact of adverse police interactions on Black youth	Dr. Brown uses a developmental psychopathology framework to: (1) understand how interpersonal relationships influence victimized children’s risk for developing adverse socioemotional outcomes and (2) elucidate biopsychosocial factors that influence treatment outcomes for victimized children.
Donna Coffman Associate Professor		Donna Coffman is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology, College of Arts and Sciences.
Tristan Collier Instructor		Tristan Collier is an Instructor in the Psychology Department, College of Arts and Sciences.
Daniel Cooper Assistant Professor	using secondary data analysis to identify malleable risk and protective factors that can be targeted, evaluating the implementation of family-based prevention programs for minoritized children, creating integrated prevention programs to jointly prevent child physical and mental health problems	Daniel Cooper is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of South Carolina. He is also affiliated with the Research Center for Child Well-Being, a newly funded research center with the mission to reduce mental and physical health problems for children ages 2-10. He received his Ph.D. in Family Social Science with a specialization in Couple and Family Therapy and Prevention Science from the University of Minnesota. T
Dr. Scott Decker Professor	Learning disabilities and neuropsychology	Dr. Decker's research interest include neuropsychological assessment, diagnostic decision making, academic assessment, development, and evolutionary psychology.
Dr. Rutvik Desai Professor	Cognitive neuroscience, Language, Semantics	I am interested in the brain bases of language and meaning. I use fMRI, TMS, and behavioral studies of patients (stroke, aphasia, Parkinson's and other movement disorders) as primary tools. The current focus of research are questions such as: (1) Is the conceptual (thinking) system of the brain completely separate from the perceptual (seeing, hearing, acting) systems of the brain? (2) To what extent does language about time and space use neural resources used for perceiving time and space?
Dr. Sarah Rose Edmunds Assistant Professor	investigates how to best implement evidence-based interventions for autism spectrum disorder (ASD)	Dr. Sarah Edmunds is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of South Carolina. At USC, Dr. Edmunds is a member of the CAN autism excellence initiative. She is also a member of the RISE research network’s implementation science team.
Dr. Amanda Jane Fairchild Professor	statistical mediation analysis, program evaluation, effect size	Dr. Fairchild's research interests involve the intersection of mediation and moderation models and how the integration of these models aids in program evaluation. Her other research interests include: effect size measures for mediation, measurement and evaluation of programs and outcomes, and statistical pedagogy.
Dr. Kate Flory Professor	adolescent and young adult outcomes associated with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), including substance use, risky sexual behavior, and social impairment	Dr. Flory's primary research focuses on the development of substance use in youths with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). She is currently examining why adolescents with ADHD are at greater risk for cigarette smoking than their non-ADHD peers.
Dr. Xiaoxue (Jessie) Fu Assistant Professor	Neural mechanisms underlying attention and cognitive control functions, Neurocognitive and behavioral risk markers for socioemotional problems in children, Early risk markers for autism spectrum disorder (ASD)	I take a developmental psychopathology perspective to study how early risk factors impact the way that children perceive and interact with their social world. I do this by implementing neural, cognitive, and behavioral measurements in my laboratory. I focus on examining and characterizing the neurocognitive and behavioral processes that lead to either adaptive or maladaptive developmental pathways for at-risk children.
Dr. Nada Mussad Goodrum Assistant Professor	Parenting, family processes, and the community context among families affected by major stressors, The intersection of trauma, HIV, and substance use, and the intergenerational transmission of risk, Family-based child health promotion and prevention of socioemotional and physical health problems	Dr. Nada Goodrum is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of South Carolina, in the Clinical-Community program. She is also affiliated with the UofSC Research Center for Child Well-Being, a multidisciplinary center focused on preventing physical and socioemotional health problems in children aged 2-10. She received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Georgia State University.
Dr. Jessica J Green Associate Professor		The overarching aim of my research is to understand the neural and psychological mechanisms of human attention and perception. To do this, I utilize a variety of behavioural and neuroimaging techniques, including EEG and fMRI, to link brain activity to cognitive processes. I am also interested in examining the similarities and differences in attentional processes across sensory modalities and multisensory integration.
Samuel (Sam) Harding Instructor		Samuel Harding is an Instructor in the Department of Psychology, University of SC.
Dr. Sayward Elizabeth Harrison Associate Professor	improving the health and wellbeing of youth who are impacted by acute and chronic health conditions, study adolescent vaccination	Dr. Sayward Harrison is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology. Dr. Harrison has a PhD in Health Psychology and a specialization in the field of Pediatric School Psychology. Her research focuses on improving the health and wellbeing of youth who are impacted by acute and chronic health conditions. Dr. Harrison's primary research interests include psychosocial and behavioral aspects of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
Dr. Steven Brown Harrod Professor	Prenatal Nicotine: Long-Term Vulnerability for Drug Abuse.	We are using rodent models to investigate factors that influence the vulnerability for human drug abuse. We are interested in how (1) prenatal nicotine exposure alters drug motivated behavior in offspring; (2) if new drugs have the ability to decrease drug taking behaviors; and (3) whether the sex of the animal influences various drug effects.
Courtney Hartin Instructor
Kimberly Hills Clinical Professor	Adolescent well-being, Clinical/Applied training at the graduate level	As a clinical assistant professor, her work focuses on providing quality instruction and clinical supervision to graduate students in the psychology department and teaching undergraduate courses in the areas of exceptional children, prevention/intervention for at-risk students, and developmental psychology.
Dr. Caitlin M Hudac Associate Professor	developmental cognitive neuroscience, neurodevelopmental disorders, social brain	I am joining the University of South Carolina in Fall 2022. I am a developmental cognitive neuroscientist using a variety of techniques (EEG/ERP, eye tracking, fMRI) to study the social brain in neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs such as autism spectrum disorder and related genetic conditions) and neurotypical populations across the lifespan. Our primary aims: (1) understand the development of the social brain; (2) identification of "biomarkers" of NDDs; (3) address disparities in neuroscience.
E. Scott Huebner Professor	Child and Adolescent personality assessment, Children's positive psychological well-being (i.e. life satisfaction, self-concept, School psychologists' stress and well-being	Dr. Huebner is Professor and Director of the School Psychology program in the Department of Psychology at the University of South Carolina (USC).
Dr. Tuyen Ngoc Huynh Research Assistant Professor	Enhancing proximal caregivers' well-being through contemplative science, Collaborates with community partners to ensure family-based prevention pgms are culturally relevant	Dr. Tuyen Huynh is an inaugural member of the Bridge to Faculty Program in the Department of Psychology at the University of South Carolina. She received her Ph.D. in Human Sciences with a specialization in Child, Youth, and Family Studies from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She completed her T32 NICHD-funded postdoctoral training programs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, including the Health Disparities Research Scholars Program (2020-2022).
Dr. Sandra Jean Kelly Professor	Neurobiology of social behavior, Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, Neurobiology of addiction and motivation	My research focuses on the effect of alcohol exposure during development on the central nervous system. Kelly's research utilizes an animal model of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, which involves exposure of rats to alcohol during a period equivalent to all three trimesters in humans.
Dr. Michelle MiKi Kitchen Senior Instructor	Teaching, Learning	Dr. Michelle (MiKi) Kitchen is an instructor in the psychology department who enjoys all principles, theories, and concepts connected to or associated with teaching and learning. She enjoys researching how we learn best and what types of instructional methods increase and support lifelong learning.
Nicole Kivita Zarrett Department Chair/Professor	The role of out-of-school activities in promoting healthy developmental pathways, The promotion of healthy behaviors and attitudes, Adolescent obesity prevention and intervention	Dr. Zarrett completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development, Tufts University. Her work focuses on understanding positive adolescent development in relation to the complex interactions between youth and their environments over time. This research involves adequately addressing the needs and interests of underrepresented groups, will be useful to researchers, policy makers and other youth advocates.
Dr. Bret Kloos Professor	promotion of adaptive functioning in community settings, meaning-making after major life disruption, homelessness and community responses to homelessness, collaboration with community-based resources	Bret Kloos is a Professor of Psychology at the University of South Carolina. He specializes in the areas of community psychology and recovery from serious mental illness and homelessness, with particular interests in promotion of adaptive functioning in community settings, homelessness, meaning-making after major life disruptions, mutual support and self-help, acculturation of immigrant groups, and collaboration with community-based resources to address social and health problems
Steven Neil Levens Senior Instructor		Dr. Levens is an instructor in the psychology department who teaches Introduction to Psychology, Research Methods, Learning & Memory, Drug Use & Effects, and Cognitive Neuroscience. His research background is in classical conditioning, drugs of abuse, and brain areas involved in reward.
Dr. Charles F. Mactutus Professor		Dr. Mactutus's major research interests are in the areas of drug abuse neurotoxicity, addictive processes (as revealed through studies of psychostimulant sensitization and sex differences therein), and NeuroAIDS. Developmental neurotoxic effects caused by maternal use of licit (nicotine, caffeine) or illicit drugs (cocaine, amphetamine) via exposure to environmental agents (e.g., passive smoking), or virotoxins (e.g., Tat and/or gp120) are one primary focus.
Pamela Martin Professor	theological orientations and behavioral outcomes, development of a theological orientation church climate scale, religious socialization and health outcomes among African Americans	Dr. Martin joined the Department of Psychology and African American Studies Program in Spring 2021. She earned a B.S. in Psychology from the University of South Carolina, M.A. in Psychology from North Carolina Central University, and a Ph.D. in Ecological/Community Psychology and Urban Studies from Michigan State University. Dr. Martin completed a NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at the Programs for Research on Black Americans at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan.
Cameron Massey Instructor		Cameron Massey is an Instructor in the Department of Psychology, College of Arts and Sciences.
Dr. Alberto Maydeu-Olivares Professor	quantitative methods, personnel selection, causal inference	Dr. Maydeu-Olivares applies and develops innovative quantitative methods to a variety of areas: clinical/personality psychology, personnel selection, and marketing. A former President of the Psychometric Society, and Editor of Psychometrika, his most recent work focuses on developing new methods for a) structural equation modeling, b) personnel and educational assessment using item response theory, c) remove common method bias in survey data, d) causal inference.
Dr. Michael W. McCall, PhD Senior Instructor		In addition to working as an instructor, Dr. McCall works as a psychological consultant to the USC Athletic Department regarding assessment and intervention for student-athletes to promote academic success at the university. Prior to working in his current capacities at USC, Dr. McCall worked in a variety of settings including work as a school psychology consultant and learning specialist for USC Athletics, work as a research assistant, and work consulting at a Montessori school.
Miss Heather McDaniel Assistant Professor
Dr. Samuel D McQuillin, PhD Associate Professor	Mentoring programs for early adolescent children	I am a research board member of the National Mentoring Resource Center, a Society for the Study of School Psychology Early Career Award recipient, and the director of the University of South Carolina’s and University of Houston’s AMPED Youth Mentoring programs. I also serve as a quantitative methodologist on a broad range of research projects.
Elizabeth (Beth) Myers Senior Instructor		Elizabeth Myers has been teaching at USC since 2012. She has taught various classes, including Research Methods, Survey of Learning and Memory, Cognitive Psychology, Survey of Developmental Psychology, Survey of Personality, Sensation & Perception, Brain & Behavior, and Humanistic Psychology. Elizabeth’s background is in psycholinguistics and specifically how we understand written language given how often it is ambiguous as well as how we interpret nonliteral language.
Dr. Roger David Newman-Norlund, PhD Research Associate Professor	My personal focus areas include the behavioral and neural signatures of (i) recovery following, cerebral insult,(ii) social interaction, (iii) motor learning, (iv) language acquisition. I, primarily use behavioral techniques and neural measures to study these topics.	Roger Newman-Norlund is Assistant Professor of Exercise Science at the University of South Carolina and Director of USC's Brain Stimulation Laboratory. Dr. Newman-Norlund's Lab examines motor control and learning as they relate to imitation, teamwork and post-stroke/post-TBI recovery.
Carissa Orlando Clinical Assistant Professor		Carissa Orlando is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology, College of Arts and Sciences.
Melanie Palomares, PhD Senior Instructor	Visual Psychophysics, Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience	Visual perception and attentional selection, perceptual organization, subitizing, letter recognition, visual development in typically-and atypically-developing children, visual-evoked potentials (VEPs)
Dr. Ron Prinz Professor	Promotion of child well-being, Prevention of child maltreatment, Population-based parenting interventions	I conduct clinical trials related to child mental health. My research focuses on the prevention of child maltreatment, population-based strategies to strengthen parenting, and interventions that combine school-based and family-based approaches.
Dr. Alexandria Marie Reynolds Senior Instructor	Sleep, Health in College Students, Technology in the Classroom	Dr. Alex Reynolds is a Senior Instructor and Undergraduate Program Director in the Department of Psychology, College of Arts and Sciences. Areas of research expertise include experimental psychology and sleep (human cognition, sleep duration); additional interests include using technology in the classroom.
Dr. Jane Roberts Professor	biological mechanisms that underlie behavioral and cognitive outcomes in young children with , neurodevelopmental disorders including autism and fragile X syndrome.	Dr. Roberts is the principal investigator of the USC Neurodevelopmental Disorders Project. She is a school psychologist who received her Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1998. Her work focuses on understanding the biological mechanisms that underlie cognitive and behavioral functioning in children and adults with neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism, fragile X syndrome, and AD/HD.
Mason T. Rodriguez Instructor
Dr. Christopher Rorden Professor	Brain Injury, Neurological Disorders, Speech and Perception	I examine the behavioral difficulties people experience after brain injury. Stroke is the leading cause of disability in the United States, often causing difficulties with speech and perception. Likewise, epilepsy is the leading major neurological disorder. We benefit from a recent revolution in non-invasive techniques for observing and stimulating the brain.
Jeffrey Schatz Professor	Pediatric Neuropsychology, Biopsychosocial factors in sickle cell disease, Attention development and the brain	Dr. Schatz' research work involves multi-level models of children's cognitive and learning abilities including social/environmental, behavioral, and biological factors. Cognitive outcomes are often measured with psychological testing, cognitive science techniques, and functional measures from classroom performance.
Sarfaraz Serang Assistant Professor	developing and evaluating statistical methods for use in the social sciences	Sarfaraz Serang is an Assistant Professor in the Psychology Department at the University of South Carolina, specifically within the Quantitative Psychology program. He received his Ph.D. in (quantitative) psychology from the University of Southern California, where he worked with Jack McArdle and Rand Wilcox. Prior to that, he did his undergraduate work at the University of California, Davis, where he majored in psychology and statistics.
Dexin Shi Associate Professor	Quantitative Methods, Statistical Modeling, Data Analysis	Dr. Shi’s research primarily focuses on developing, improving, and applying statistical methods (from both Frequentist and Bayesian perspectives) for modeling psychological data. His methodological interests reside in the following four areas: 1) Psychometrics, 2) Model fit and model selection, 3) Causal inference, and 4) Missing data analysis. He is also interested in the application of quantitative methods to substantive areas of psychology, especially in clinical and health related studies.
Dr. Svetlana V. Shinkareva Professor	fMRI, quantitative psychology, machine learning	Dr. Shinkareva has received her Ph.D. in quantitative psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She completed her post-doctoral training at Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Shinkareva's research focuses on studying the neural basis of semantic knowledge representation and affect.
Courtnie Smith Research Assistant Professor		Courtnie Smith, PsyD, joined the IFS team to assist with project coordination and management in conjunction with Dr. Cheri Shapiro. Dr. Smith began her work at the University of South Carolina in 2017 as part of the School Behavioral Mental Health Team. Dr. Smith is a trained clinical psychologist, with experience in psychological assessment and therapeutic interventions with pediatric populations.
Alex Steiner Instructor		Alex Steiner is an Instructor in the Psychology Department, College of Arts and Sciences.
Dr. Suzanne Swan Professor		Dr. Swan's program of research follows the tradition of Kurt Lewin's dictum that "there is nothing so practical as a good theory." Her research interests are in the field of interpersonal violence and aggression, with a focus on two main areas: interventions to prevent violence, particularly among college populations, and women's use of violence and aggression in intimate relationships.
Stephen George Taylor Clinical Assistant Professor	investigating the intersection of physical and mental health, efficacy of mindfulness-based interventions to reduce stress and burnout	Stephen Taylor, PhD, is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of South Carolina. Dr. Taylor received his Ph.D. in Clinical-Community Psychology from the University of South Carolina and completed his clinical internship at the Charles George Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Asheville, North Carolina. He has clinical expertise in third-wave cognitive behavioral interventions and strengths-based approaches that utilize a functional-contextual framework.
Christine Vahlstrom Instructor		Christine Vahlstrom is an Instructor in the Psychology Department, College of Arts and Sciences.
Dr. Jennifer Mary-Coplin Vendemia Associate Professor	chronic pain, sensory-motor integration	Over the past several years my research has been concerned with understanding how cognitive and personality variables moderate pain perception. Pain is a dynamic phenomena formed from the interplay of several cortical and sub-cortical systems. Most of my research in this area involves simultaneously recording brain electrical activity, blood pressure, and heart rate data while participants perform tasks that are cognitively or physiologically demanding.
Peter Vento Assistant Professor	understand how the brain encodes negative experiences	Research in the Vento Lab focuses on brain pathways mediating aversive learning and cost-benefit decision-making. How do we learn from negative experiences in day-to-day life, and how do we come to avoid suboptimal outcomes in the future? What are the neural circuits that control these processes and how are they perturbed in individuals battling substance abuse, depression, or anxiety disorders? To address these questions, we deploy a wide range of techniques in rodents.
Dr. Douglas Wedell Professor	Cognitive Psychology, Decision Making, Mathetmatical Psychology	Dr. Wedell's research focuses on how context affects how we think about and interact with the world. He has studied context effects by altering the nature of the stimulus or choice set, changing features of the task, such as the mode of presentation or the type or response required, and manipulating the framing of the information being considered. His research is characterized by development of quantitative models that explain judgment, decision, and memory processes.
Professor Mark D Weist Professor	school mental health services, evidence-based practice with children and adolescents	Mark Weist is Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of South Carolina. He was on the faculty of the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSM) for 19 years where he helped to found and direct the Center for School Mental Health, one of two national centers providing leadership to the advancement of school mental health (SMH) policies and programs in the United States.
Dr. Dawn Wilson-King Professor	Obesity prevention	Dr. Wilson's areas of research interest include understanding family dynamics/interactions in promoting healthy diet and physical activity in underserved adolescents, ecological and social cognitive theoretical models for understanding family connectedness, social support and role modeling in promoting health behavior change in youth, family-based interventions for promoting healthy diet and physical activity among underserved adolescents.
Dr. Guillermo Manuel Wippold Associate Professor		Guillermo Wippold is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of South Carolina. He received his doctoral degree from the University of Florida and completed his predoctoral internship at the University of Kansas Medical Center. Dr. Wippold is passionate about working with underserved populations. He has worked closely with YMCAs, the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, and various medical clinics.