Spring 2025
Katherine Binder is a cognitive psychologist who is interested in understanding the development of literacy skills in people of all ages. For one line of research, I examine how adults who have low literacy skills develop these abilities. I might examine how they process words in context, how they acquire new vocabulary words, or even how their writing abilities develop. In another line of research, I examine how children develop proficiency with reading skills. Currently, we are interested in the strategies that children use while taking reading comprehension tests.
Areas of Expertise
Language acquisition, vocabulary development, and reading comprehension processes and strategies.
Interested in learning more?
Joining the Lab:
Professor Binder regularly accepts new research assistants. To apply, please fill out the application that can be found here: https://forms.gle/5cf21bwDYYYCee417
Mara Breen uses cognitive and brain imaging methods to explore how the musical aspects of language (pitch and rhythm) help people understand speech and facilitate literacy acquisition.
Areas of Expertise
Psycholinguistics, cognitive neuroscience, music cognition, reading comprehension, prosody
Interested in learning more?
Joining the Lab:
Professor Breen regularly accepts new research assistants. To apply, fill out our lab application: https://forms.gle/Bp9mPCWMT2wNatpXA
Corey Flanders' work focuses on addressing social issues and promoting positive social change. In particular, she uses tools from Psychology, Gender Studies, and Public Health to investigate concerns related to identity and health equity among marginalized communities with an emphasis on working with young queer and trans people.
Areas of Expertise
identity; health equity; community-based research; queer and trans health
Interested in learning more?
Joining the Lab:
Taking students for Fall 2025. Please email Corey if interested: cflander@mtholyoke.edu.
KC Haydon’s research examines the developmental origins of how people behave in their closest relationships. She studies how romantic partners’ individual developmental histories affect what happens in their current relationship – how they resolve conflicts, regulate and express emotions, support each other, and handle interpersonal stress. KC's work incorporates attachment and psychophysiology to understand how stress and interpersonal relationships affect health, including sleep, substance use, and psychological distress.
Areas of Expertise
Attachment processes in adulthood; romantic relationship development and maintenance; physiological correlates of relationship functioning; close relationships as developmental contexts across the lifespan
Joining the Lab:
KC is not currently accepting new research assistants. Please check back in Fall 25 for updates.
Travis Hodges' primary research interests involve sex differences in stress, depressive symptoms, and negative cognition across development. As a behavioral neuroscience lab, he specializes in uncovering mechanisms in the brain and periphery that underlie behaviors related to stress and depression. Many therapeutic approaches currently available vary in effectiveness and this might be due to the lack of consideration of age and sex. Laying the sex- and age-specific groundwork of mechanisms involved in mental health symptoms and stress outcomes will help in the development of much more effective treatments for these behaviors. In rat models of depressive symptoms, he examines the involvement of multiple factors - neuronal activation and networks, hormones, inflammation, neurogenesis, and gut microbiota.
Interested in learning more?
Students interested in this work should email Professor Hodges at thodges@mtholyoke.edu
Joining the lab:
I will be on sabbatical in Fall 2025, and thus will not be accepting new students.
Jennifer Jacoby is interested in how both learners and teachers develop in school contexts. In particular, she seeks to understand how teachers can best support the learning of linguistically and socio-economically diverse groups of children, adolescents, and young adults. She uses both qualitative and quantitative methods in her research.
Areas of Expertise
Teacher beliefs; teaching methods for literacy; teaching methods for vocabulary development among first- and additional-language learners; first-year seminars in higher education contexts
Interested in learning more?
Joining the lab:
I am not currently accepting new students into the lab, though I welcome anyone with an interest in educational research to schedule an appointment with me on Pathways. I am open to hearing about your interests for a potential independent study.
To indicate your interest, please email Professor Jacoby.
Jackson Matos is interested in the role of equality and liberation in learning communities. Matos' research has two distinct areas. In the first area, Matos examines how Latinx student, family, and community assets can be utilized to enhance the system of education in the U.S. In the second area, he examines the effect of social justice frameworks on pedagogy and policies.
Areas of Expertise
Latinxs in education; social justice education; middle and secondary school licensure, social justice in higher education, transgender families and education, parenting and social justice, liberation and oppression
Joining the lab:
I will be accepting new students into the lab in the Fall 2025 semester. To learn more, please email Professor Matos at jmatos@mtholyoke.edu
Kelley O’Carroll is interested in the roles that families and teachers play in young children’s learning and development in racially, ethnically and socioeconomically diverse families. Specifically, O’Carroll’s research has examined parent social support, social capital and family-school relationships in young children’s school readiness. She has also studied the impact of professional development on early childhood teachers’ partnerships with families, and she is interested in the factors that support sustained change in teacher practices after professional development. O’Carroll uses both quantitative and qualitative research methods in community-based settings.
Becky Wai-Ling Packard is interested in the intersection of motivation, identity, and mentoring. She aims, she says, "to understand how young people without easily identifiable role models and mentors in career domains manage to find the mentoring they need and sustain their desired possible selves, or who they hope to become in the future."
Packard's research focuses on mentoring, with an emphasis on how individuals such as first-generation college students, women, and persons of color construct mentoring networks as they navigate complex pathways toward higher education and work. She frequently speaks on these topics at the local, state, and national level. She also offers expert advice on ways to design mentoring and advising initiatives for students and faculty.
Areas of Expertise
Mentoring; Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion topics; Persistence of first-generation college students, students of color, and women, particularly in science and technology fields. I also study teaching, tutoring, and advising to try to improve these methods.
Interested in learning more?
Joining the Lab:
The best way to get involved is to take a course with me. You can also email me to find out what we have under way and if there is a way to get involved.
Jared Schwartzer is a behavioral neuroscientist studying how various environmental factors during pregnancy impact offspring brain and behavioral health. His work has focused on topics of maternal inflammation, air pollution, and electronic cigarette use during pregnancy to understand the neurodevelopmental impacts of various public health issues. His lab uses a combination of behavioral observations and biological diagnostic tools to identify biomarkers that link behavior differences to brain inflammation. This work highlights the importance of a gene-environment interaction, such as genetic predisposition, when evaluating the adverse effects of environmental insults.
Ongoing research in the Schwartzer lab focuses on the growing field of immune-induced mental health by translating clinical observations into testable hypotheses. This work lies at the intersection of behavioral neuroscience, neuroimmunology, and biomedical research to identify how interactions between the immune system and nervous system throughout gestation shape offspring brain and behavior development. We employ a range of molecular and behavioral approaches to untangle the complex gene-environment interactions that lead to neurodevelopmental disorders.
Areas of Expertise
Behavioral neuroscience, Neuroimmunology, Brain development, Neurotoxicology
Interested in learning more?
Joining the Lab:
I am often looking for new research assistants. Please email me if you are interested. No previous experience needed
Balbir Singh's research, broadly speaking, examines how people perceive others (social perception). More specifically, Singh is interested in how race impacts face recognition, identification, and intergroup relations. He has ongoing projects that examine how we recognize people of other races and how misidentifications impact minority targets. He is also exploring why a person's race is cognitively salient with people we know.
Areas of Expertise
Face processing, social cognition, race and integroup relations, social identity, social psychology
Interested in learning more?
Joining the Lab:
Currently recruiting research assistants and independent studies for the Spring 2026. Please do not wait to contact me.
Please email bsingh@mtholyoke.edu if you are interested.
John Tawa's research, broadly speaking, examines the role of race in intergroup interactions. More specifically, Tawa is particularly interested in relations between minority groups (e.g., relations between Black people and Asians). Some of his research supports the idea that perceived competition for resources (e.g., educational, economic) creates greater distance between Black people and Asians relative to both their distances towards the White majority group. The second line of Tawa’s research examines the ways in which people’s essentialist beliefs about race influence their intergroup behaviors.
Areas of Expertise
Race-relations, racial essentialism, behavioral research methods, clinical psychology
Interested in learning more?
Joining the Lab:
Not currently taking students. When this changes, you can indicate your interest for open positions by contacting through the website.