Hello! My name is Elise, and I am a 5th year PhD student in the Developmental Area in the Department of Psychology at Arizona State University. I currently do my research in the Emerging Minds Lab with Dr. Kelsey Lucca.

As a researcher, I try to understand children's effort-related decision making (e.g., decisions to pursue difficult tasks and continue to persist when they feel difficult), and how influences from their social environment, including adult-child pedagogical interactions, influence those decisions. Through my research, I hope to better understand under what conditions adult caregivers can best support children's learning, persistence, and challenge-seeking behavior. As a cognitive developmentalist, I see myself as uniquely positioned to pursue questions that are both theoretically impactful and practically relevant, and I aim to continue building a research career that bridges basic science and meaningful, implementable findings.

As a teacher, I believe that effective mentorship of undergraduate students from a variety of backgrounds is a powerful way to improve science in the present and future. See more about my teaching experience on the "Teaching" page.