The Kindergarten Readiness Research Program

Megan McClelland, Ph.D.

Principal Investigator

Megan McClelland is the Hallie E.Ford Center for Healthy Children & Families Endowed Director and the Katherine E. Smith Professor of Healthy Children and Families in Human Development and Family Sciences at Oregon State University. Her research focuses on optimizing children's development, especially as it relates to children’s self-regulation and school readiness including links between self-regulation and academic achievement from early childhood to adulthood, recent advances in measuring self-regulation, and intervention efforts to improve these skills in young children.
Profile page

Alexis Tracy, M.S.

Training Manager

Alexis is a training manager at Oregon State University managing the Red Light, Purple Light self-regulation intervention training and implementation and the Early Learning System Initiative (ELSI) training core. Through these two programs, Alexis works to support, enhance, and create high quality and evidence based trainings for the early learning workforce in Oregon and beyond. Her research and training interests include social and emotional development in young children, practical and easy to implement games and activities for early learning settings, and educator well-being.
Profile page

Jasmine Karing, MPH

Research Project Coordinator

Jasmine Karing is a Research Project Coordinator at Oregon State University. She received a master’s degree in Public Health from the University of Hawaii, specializing in Native Hawaiian and Indigenous Health. As part of her graduate work, she focused on maternal health, health equity and social justice. Jasmine previously worked at the Native Hawaiian Center of Excellence at the John A. Burns, School of Medicine as a Research & Evaluation Specialist coordinating the research, needs assessments, and data analysis of health focused interventions for high school and middle school children.
Email Jasmine

Michel Wiman, M.S.

Research Project Coordinator

Michel is a Research Project Coordinator at Oregon State University. She completed her master's degree in Environmental Sciences from Montana State University, and brings two decades of research experience in ecological experimental design, data collection, results evaluation and communication. She enjoys supporting teachers in experiential early education settings, and coordinating partnerships and tools that promote early child development. She is interested in researching the intersection of child self-regulation and ecological immersion, and increasing equity and access to experiential and outdoor education in early learning settings.

Qinghua Chen, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Scholar

Qinghua is a postdoctoral scholar at Oregon State University. She received her Ph.D. in Curriculum, Instruction, and the Science of Learning from the State University of New York at Buffalo, and holds an M.Ed. in Early Childhood and Childhood Education, an M.A. in International Journalism, and a B.A. in English Language and Literature. Qinghua’s research focuses on school readiness, cross-cultural studies in childhood education, and children's art and self-expression. Prior to her current career in academia, Qinghua has over 14 years working experiences in marketing and journalism, which leads to her strong interests in applied research and science communications to optimize children’s development in multiple domains and support underserved populations.

Sabrina Kenny, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Scholar

Sabrina is a postdoctoral scholar at Oregon State University. She received her Ph.D. in Curriculum, Instruction, and the Science of Learning from the State University of New York at Buffalo with a focus in early childhood learning and has a master's degree in occupational therapy. Sabrina's research focuses on school readiness, social-emotional learning, assessment, and meta-analysis. Prior to her current career in higher education, Sabrina has over 15 years working as an occupational therapist in early intervention and the New York City school system where she supported children with various needs and provided mentorship and professional development training for teachers, parents, and other occupational therapists. Sabrina pursued a PhD in education to deepen her knowledge of how children learn and develop and to promote evidence-based practice in fields supporting the learning and development of young children such as early childhood education and occupational therapy./p>

Ahmad Ahmadi

Graduate Research Assistant

Ahmad is a Ph.D. candidate at the kindergarten readiness lab. He graduated from the University of Tehran, Iran, in 2017 with a B.A. in psychology and an M.A. in special education, where he studied executive function among children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and learning disabilities. Ahmad’s research interests center around the development of the executive function, its measurement, and the link to early academic performance, specifically the relationship between executive function and math.

Honors and Awards
Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) travel Award (2022)

Amara Bradetich

Graduate Research Assistant

Amara graduated from the University of North Texas with a Master's degree in Educational Psychology, specializing in Human Development and Learning, in 2018 and worked for two years with Early Childhood Intervention in Texas before beginning the PhD program in Human Development and Family Sciences at OSU. Her research interests center around child self-regulation and how the environment, specifically the prenatal and parental environments, affect a child's development of self-regulation. Specifically, she is interested in how maternal experiences during pregnancy affect child self-regulation in early childhood and how the parenting relationship and parenting skills used in early childhood impact children's regulation of emotions, behaviors, and cognitions. Amara is also interested in family policy and the translation of research in helping families better support their children's development. She looks forward to graduating from OSU with her PhD in 2024 and pursuing applied research positions in early childhood.

Paige Braithwaite

Graduate Research Assistant

Paige graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2021 with a B.A. in Human Development and Family Studies and worked as a research assistant at the UNC Brain and Early Experience (BEE) Lab during her senior year. Paige's research interests center around examining the factors that affect metacognition, self-regulation, and motivation in early childhood. More specifically, she is interested in examining the specific factors that shape the malleability of development in early childhood. Paige looks forward to applying her research interests as she begins working on her master's thesis at OSU in the Fall of 2022.

Alexis Merculief, M.S.

Graduate Research Assistant

Alexis is interested in how features of the built and social environment influence cognitive development (specifically, executive function) in early and middle childhood; as well as how community resilience and cultural identity can promote long-term health and academic achievement for children from underserved populations. Alexis graduated with her B.A. in Psychology from Seattle Pacific University where she researched self-regulation in children with Autism. She is an Aleut tribal member and previously worked to promote health and well-being in American Indian/Alaska Native children through youth program development at an AI/AN health organization in the Northwest.
Profile page

Xinfang Si, M.S.

Graduate Research Assistant

Xinfang Si graduated in Human Development and Family Studies from Colorado State University with a major in Prevention Science. Before that, she had earned an M.A. in Development Psychology in China. Her research goal is to optimize the development of children during early childhood. She is interested in promoting children’s self-regulation (e.g., executive function) and school readiness (e.g., social-emotional competencies and academic outcomes). She is also interested in the combined impacts of individual characteristics and parent-child interactions on the development of children in a disadvantaged environment (e.g., socioeconomic status, divorce, neighborhood, etc.). Specifically, she is interested in the translation of research into intervention/prevention programs, as well as how to promote children’s self-regulation and school readiness through them.

Isabella Sciuto Ozenbaugh, M.S.

Graduate Research Assistant

Isabella's research focuses on the development of self-regulation in early childhood and early elementary school among children who live in under-resourced environments. Additionally, she has a special interest in examining how to support families as a whole and finding the most effective places to intervene in family and children’s lives to boost self-regulation and the capacity for resilient development. Finally, she is also interested in understanding how family and child care policies shape development and how we can better support families and children through local, state, and federal policies.

Grace Southworth

Education Project Assistant

Grace Southworth is an Education Project Assistant and graduated from OSU with a degree in kinesiology. Her research interests include how preschool and kindergarten education settings contribute to children’s development of self-regulatory and academic readiness skills. Specifically, she is interested in learning more about the barriers to academic achievement for families in disadvantaged areas and how self-regulation interventions can help preschool and kindergarten aged children in these settings.

Yulaidi Ornelas

Education Project Assistant

Yulaidi recently graduated from Oregon State University and earned her Bachelors in Human Development and Family Sciences with a focus in child development. She is interested in family dynamics and how it can affect a child’s social skills. In general, Yulaidi dedicates her work in studying children’s cognitive abilities and how different environments, circumstances, and genetics can influence their executive functioning.