Elise M Cardinale, Ph.D.

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the Catholic University of America. I received my PhD in Lifespan Cognitive Neuroscience from Georgetown University and conducted my post-doctoral training at the National Institute of Mental Health. 

My research adopts a multidisciplinary approach, leveraging social psychology, developmental, clinical, and neuroscience perspectives to better understand brain-behavior mechanisms underlying the development of externalizing behaviors. These behaviors can disrupt social relationships and predict negative trajectories for youth and their communities. Although externalizing behaviors are the single most common reason children are referred for mental health treatment in North America, they remain poorly understood.

My work specifically examines processes such as empathy, inhibitory control, and social decision making, focusing specifically on adolescence as it is a critical time period for the development of these processes and externalizing behaviors. I utilize a multi-method approach that includes functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), eye-tracking, and behavioral paradigms.