Our Team

Kathryn Lemery-Chalfant, Ph.D.

Director and Principal Investigator

Dr. Lemery-Chalfant has been a professor of psychology at Arizona State University for over 20 years. She obtained her bachelor’s degree from the University of Oregon’s Clark Honors College in 1994, and obtained her Ph.D. in psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1999.  Her research focuses on how genes and environments work together to influence child and adolescent development, and she has published over 100 scientific articles on this topic. Dr. Lemery-Chalfant launched the Arizona Twin Project in 2008 in order to understand how families can best support their children’s physical and social-emotional development. The Arizona Twin Project has since then expanded to the Southwest Twin Panel in 2024, to include families of twins from New Mexico into the study.

Leah Doane, Ph.D.

Principal Investigator

Leah Doane is a Professor in the Department of Psychology and Associate Dean of Graduate Initiatives in The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. She received her Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from Cornell University, her M.A. and Ph.D. in Human Development and Social Policy from Northwestern University, and completed a postdoctoral appointment at the University of Chicago in Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience. Using culturally- and genetically-informed designs, her program of research centers on links between health behaviors, physiological stress processes, and everyday stressful experiences in childhood, adolescence and young adulthood from a developmental psychopathology framework.

Further, much of her work focuses on these processes in Latinx youth and families, and during times of transition, such as the transition to college. Doane was a William T. Grant Foundation Scholar and has been funded by the National Institutes for Health (NICHD), the Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences (ARI), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She has served in several leadership positions in the Department of Psychology including Developmental Graduate Training Area Head, Director of Faculty Success, and Associate/Deputy Chair.

Mary Davis, Ph.D.

Principal Investigator

Dr. Davis is a clinical health psychologist and Professor of Psychology. She also is currently Associate Chair in the Department of Psychology and Research Council Chair of the Center for Mindfulness, Compassion, and Resilience at ASU. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Bacteriology from University of Idaho and her Masters and Ph.D. in Psychology (Clinical Emphasis) from the University of Pittsburgh. She then joined the faculty as ASU. Dr. Davis examines how social and emotional and social risk and resilience factors shape adaptation to stress. Her work includes developing and testing interventions designed to bolster resilience, such as mindfulness, in the face of ongoing challenges associated with chronic pain, trauma, and aging. She has expertise in physiological and self-report assessment of the dynamic relations among interpersonal stress and joy, emotions, and pain in daily life and in laboratory settings. Her current collaboration with Drs. Lemery-Chalfant and Doane is supported by the National Institutes of Health (NICHD) to examine the environmental and genetic contributions to chronic pain in middle-childhood.

Candace Lewis, Ph.D.

Co-investigator

Dr. Lewis is a neuroscientist who wants to revolutionize our understanding of health by exploring dynamic environmental and genetic influences on brain-behavior relationships. Candace grew up in Alaska and earned a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of Alaska Anchorage. Next, she earned a Ph.D. in Behavioral Neuroscience at Arizona State University on a Harry S. Truman Scholarship while investigating the effects of early life stress on addiction behavior and neuroepigenetics. Dr. Lewis received a Fulbright Fellowship to learn advanced neuroimaging and psychedelic research methods at the University Hospital of Zurich. She was also awarded the Science Foundation Arizona Bisgrove Fellowship to investigate the interplay between early experiences, epigenetics, physiology, and behavior. Taken together, her research centers around the age-old question of nature versus nurture with a modern twist. Dr. Lewis seeks to unravel how genetics and experiences continuously interact to shape neurobiology and behavior. 

Jennifer Kennedy, M.S.

data collection coordinator

Jennifer has been apart of research at ASU for many years with her previous work on the Transiciones study and LivesMix project. Her role on the Arizona Twin Project has primarily been to improve communication among research team members, increase participation retention, and facilitate quality data collection.

Samantha Norem

scheduling coordinator

Sam started working on the Arizona Twin Project as an undergraduate research assistant and is now taking on a staff role.  She works primarily with participant scheduling, engagement, and outreach.  Sam is currently working on her Master’s in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Grand Canyon University and has an interest in the resilience and development of children and adolescents.  In her free time, Sam likes to read, play with her dog named Xena, and listen to a wide range of music.

Valeria Gutierrez

Outreach Coordinator

Valeria has been a part of the Arizona Twin Project since sophomore year as an undergraduate research assistant and now holds a staff position. Her role in the lab consists of working with Spanish-speaking participants, the recruitment of new families, and the management of our social media accounts. Valeria is working towards applying to Ph.D. programs to explore her research interests on the influence of cultural processes and ecological contexts on family dynamics and youth outcomes.

Carlos Valiente, Ph.D.

Collaborator

Dr. Valiente is a co-investigator for the Arizona Twin Project. He is a developmental scientist and Professor in the T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics at Arizona State University. Dr. Valiente received his Ph.D. in Family Science from Arizona State University.

Dr. Valiente studies children’s emotional, social, and academic functioning. He is especially interested in understanding when and why emotion and self-regulation are related to success in the academic domain. He also studies how parents, peers, and the social environment shape children’s self-regulation, social, and academic functioning. Dr. Valiente has also been involved in intervention research designed to promote students’ readiness for, and success in, early elementary school. 

Samantha Miadich, Ph.D.

COLLABORATOR

Dr. Miadich was previously a Postdoctoral Research Associate working on the Arizona Twin Project for three years and now is an Assistant Professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and collaborates with the team. Her program of research focuses on pediatric health psychology, specifically, examining prevalent chronic conditions (e.g., asthma, sleep problems, recurrent pain) from risk and resilience frameworks to delineate targets of intervention to improve child and adolescent outcomes. She incorporates novel methodologies, objective assessment, and advanced statistical modeling in her work to explicate processes that inhibit or promote health among children.

Reagan Breitenstein, Ph.D.

Collaborator

Dr. Breitenstein is currently an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Appalachian State University. Using psychobiological methods, objective sleep data, biological weight measurements, and twin designs, Dr. Breitenstein’s research concentrates on understanding genetic, environmental, and psychosocial factors that contribute to poor sleep, as well as associations between poor and inadequate sleep and various developmental outcomes across childhood and adolescence (e.g., weight indicators, stress physiology, academic achievement). Currently, she is also exploring how individual differences in cultural values and child temperament contribute to links between poor sleep, health, and academic outcomes in childhood and adolescence.

Jodi Swanson, Ph.D.

Collaborator

Dr. Swanson is an associate teaching professor in the School of Social and Family Dynamics at Arizona State University and has collaborated with the Arizona Twin Project for a number of years. She teaches courses on development-in-context across childhood and adolescence, family processes, and social science methodologies. Her research centers on self-regulation competence, especially at preschool and early elementary school, when many of the neural pathways in the brain begin to fire rapidly in the growth of these critically important skills, including focusing attention, managing emotions, inhibiting distraction, planning, persistence, and so on—and how parents and teachers can foster these.

Veronica Oro, Ph.D.

Collaborator

Dr. Oro was previously a graduate student working on the Arizona Twin Project. Broadly, Dr. Oro’s research examines genetic and environmental mechanisms underlying parent-offspring transmission of physical and mental health. Using the data of twin offspring and their parents, she attempts to determine the level of specificity at which symptomology clusters within families and whether environmental factors explain familial aggregation above and beyond the influence of shared genetics. Dr. Oro is particularly interested in the role sociocultural factors play in the etiology and manifestation of symptomology. Considering high rates of comorbidity across physical and mental health conditions, her research also elucidates shared genetic and environmental etiology across the two domains.

Gianna Rea-Sandin, Ph.D.

Collaborator

Dr. Rea-Sandin, formerly a graduate student in Developmental Psychology at Arizona State University, joined the Arizona Twin Project in 2016. Her research focuses on understanding the genetic and environmental factors that influence children's self-regulation and academic competence. Additionally, she is passionate about incorporating cultural perspectives into behavior genetics. Dr. Rea-Sandin is currently an Assistant Professor in the Division of General Pediatrics and Adolescent Health at the University of Minnesota.

Emma Lecarie, M.A.

Graduate Student

Emma is a Clinical Psychology Ph.D. student at Arizona State University. Her research is focused on health processes, such as stress and sleep, in relation to mental health outcomes during the developmental periods of childhood and adolescence. She is particularly interested in the manifestation of internalizing symptoms across the pubertal transition, and understanding the role of genetic and environmental factors, including the effects of family dynamics and life stress, on pubertal development and subsequent symptomatology.

Education

Arizona State University

Psychology, M.A.

Binghamton University

Psychology, B.A.

Human Development, B.S.

Eva Bartsch, M.A.

graduate student

Eva is a Clinical Psychology Ph.D. student at Arizona State University. Her research explores how health behaviors such as physical activity and sleep benefit mental and physical health outcomes through biological, psychological, and social mechanisms. She is particularly interested in studying the role of epigenetic mechanisms for the development and maintenance of chronic pain and internalizing symptoms. Her clinical training includes the use of evidence-based practices to improve coping skills, distress tolerance, and self-compassion.

Education

Arizona State University

Psychology, M.A.

Manhattan College

Psychology, B.S.

Janna Pickett, M.A.

Graduate student

Janna is a Ph.D. student in Developmental Psychology at Arizona State University. Her research focuses on understanding social development in childhood with a particular emphasis on the social influence of siblings. Janna loves to teach and hopes to continue doing so in her future career as a professor.

Education

Bringham Young University

Human Development, B.S.

Savannah Ostner

Graduate student

Savannah is a Ph.D. student in Clinical Psychology at Arizona State University. Broadly, her research examines the effect of gene-environment interplay on the development of psychopathology, as well as resilience, following early life stress. In particular, Savannah is interested in how environmental factors, such as parent-child interactions and early life stress, and individual factors, such as emotion regulation, can influence the development of psychopathology within the context of genetic risk. She is also interested in the role of epigenetic mechanisms underlying the development of psychopathology.

Education

Southern Methodist University

Psychology, B.S.

Alexys Murillo

Graduate student

Alexys is a Ph.D. student in Developmental Psychology at Arizona State University. Her research is focused on the development of resilience in childhood. She is particularly interested in the role of caregivers and educators in socioemotional development and understanding how individual differences in a child's behavioral and emotional reactivity and regulation (temperament) interact with the familial and social environment to promote resilient outcomes in the face of stress and adversity.

Education

Colorado State University

Psychology, B.S.

Christy Bui

Graduate Student

Christy is a Ph.D. student in Clinical Psychology at Arizona State University. Christy is broadly interested in understanding how early environmental experiences confer risk for the development of psychopathology. She is also interested in how stress and sleep during key developmental transitions impacts on health and socioemotional outcomes.

Education

Swinburne University of Technology

Psychology, B.A.

Amanda Fuller, M.A.

Former DATA MAnager and coding coordinator

Amanda was a research specialist whose responsibilities included various aspects of data collection and management. One of her primary focuses was working with data processed by software that captures objective measures of universal emotions. With these data, we are exploring facets of health and development including the parent-child relationship, sibling relationships, and chronic pain. Amanda is also interested in the ways in which our evolved psychological mechanisms operate throughout development in contemporary environments.

Meryl Olah, M.A.

Former Graduate Student

Meryl earned her bachelor’s degrees in Psychology and Studio Arts at Mill College and joined the Arizona Twin Project as a Clinical Psychology graduate student. She is broadly interested in socio-emotional influences on long-term health and wellbeing. She is especially interested in how mindfulness and self-compassion promote adaptive forms of emotion regulation that buffer against the effects of stress and chronic pain. Additionally, she is interested in examining how parent-child interactions promote healthy adaptations to stress.

Martyna Sawicka, M.S.

Former scheduling Coordinator

Martyna coordinated the data collection operations of the interdisciplinary Arizona Twin Project including scheduling, tracking, recruitment, and social media management. She created the training protocols for all incoming Arizona Twin Project home visit team members and participant survey management. She is currently a J.D. candidate at the James E. Rogers College of Law. Her research interests include risk and protective factors for psychopathology and intersections of law and mental health.

Shannon Moore, M.A.

Former Graduate Student

Shannon graduated from University of Delaware in 2011 with a BA in psychology and sociology. Her research interests include examining resiliency over the life course, and the impact of socioeconomic factors in the development and management of chronic health conditions, including chronic pain. She plans to continue to investigate the intersection between socioeconomic status and physical and mental health.