OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
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The Kindergarten Readiness Research Program
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.
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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.
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Research Associate
Qinghua is a Research Associate 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, learning through play, self-regulation, 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.
Research Project Coordinator
As a Research Project Coordinator at Oregon State University, Jenny works on the Red Light, Purple Light project. She earned her Master of Public Health degree in community health education from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. Jenny has over 15 years of public health and project management experience with an emphasis on high-risk youth populations, community-wide approaches to prevention, and facilitating groups through complex processes involving research, data collection and analysis, and project planning, implementation, and evaluation. She is interested in learning more about the intersection of adverse childhood experiences and the development of self-regulation skills in children, and their impact on academic success.
Education Project Assistant
Kendall Simmons has worked in Elementary Education as Behavior Support for the past two years. Kendall earned Bachelor degrees in Public Health and Spanish from Central Washington University in 2019 and is a current Graduate Student in Social Work at Portland State University. She is excited to join the RLPL team and contribute to ongoing research that supports self-regulation intervention strategies in preschools.
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)
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.
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.
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.
Education Project Assistant
Itzel Mariel Brink-Magaña is an Education Project Assistant and a senior in the online Clinical Psychology Access program at DeSales University. When she graduates, she plans to pursue a graduate degree in school psychology. Her research interests include how preschool and kindergarten education settings contribute to children’s development of self-regulatory and academic readiness skills. She is especially interested in learning more about the barriers to academic achievement for families in disadvantaged areas and how to most effectively help families as a whole, as well as in determining the most effective ways to assist families and children's lives in terms of self-regulation and academic achievement.
Education Project Assistant
Sophie Snelling is an Education Project Assistant and graduated from Oregon State with a degree in kinesiology and a minor in public health policy and management. As an undergraduate, Sophie worked as a research assistant on the Red Light Purple Light project. Her interests include public health policy and the relationship between health policies and the health of individuals in her area. She is also pursuing a Medical Laboratory Technologist certification that will allow her to work in medical laboratories.
Alexandria (Allie) Nancarrow, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Scholar
Jessica Dahlgren, Ph.D.
Researcher and Data Analyst
Jennifer Finders, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Purdue University
Christopher Gonzales, Ph.D.
UC Davis
Postdoctoral Scholar
Derek Becker, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Western Carolina University
Aya Bukres, B.S.
User Research manager at Amplify Education
Guadalupe Diaz, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
University of California Fullerton
Robert Duncan, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor,
Purdue University
Alicia Miao, Ph.D.
Director of Data Strategy and Management
Early Learning Division
Christopher Partipilo, M.S.
Management Analyst for Clackamas County Supportive Housing Services
Megan Pratt, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Practice
Oregon State University
Sara Schmitt, Ph. D.
Associate Professor
University of Oregon
Shauna Tominey, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Practice & Parenting Education Specialist
Oregon State University
Shannon Beth Wanless, Ph.D.
University of Pittsburgh
