Lab Members
Laboratory Director | Lab Staff | Graduate Students | Undergraduate Students | Lab Alumni
Laboratory Director
Seth Pollak, PhD
Vaughan Bascom Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Professor of Anthropology, Pediatrics, Psychiatry and Public Affairs, University of Wisconsin at Madison
I hold doctoral degrees in Clinical Psychology and in Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and approach research on child development from both basic science and applied, public health perspectives. From the vantage point of basic science, my students and I explore the mechanisms of developmental change. Through our research, we address questions about the interpersonal, cognitive and neurobiological mechanisms that are responsible for the increasingly complex behaviors that children may acquire during infancy, early childhood, and into adolescence. My particular area of interest is in understanding how the quantity and quality of early experiences in children’s lives influences how children think about and process information. Members of our lab group hope to leverage an understanding of how developmental change occurs to develop effective prevention and intervention strategies for children most at risk for emotional, learning and behavior problems. Taken together, the goal of our research is to better understand the role that early experiences in children’s lives have on development of brain structure and function.
E-mail: ChildEmotion@waisman.wisc.edu
AWARD FOR DISTINGUISHED SCIENTIFIC EARLY CAREER CONTRIBUTIONS TO PSYCHOLOGY
In November 2006 Dr. Pollak received an award for Distinguished Scientific Early Career Contributions to Psychology. To read his biographical sketch, click here: Biographical Sketch
In September 2020 Dr. Pollak was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In April 2021 Dr. Pollak was named as a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. To read a story about this, click here.
New perspectives on understanding child poverty: Q&A with Seth Pollak in Knowlable.
Laboratory Members
Anna Bechner, Research Laboratory Manager
B.S. Ed., Marian College (Early Childhood & Elementary Education)
E-mail: ambechner@wisc.edu
My background includes teaching and research experience with families and young children in childcare, preschool, and the elementary school level. As a teacher I became very interested in understanding how children’s emotional experiences affect learning, behavior, and socio-emotional development. In my current role, I manage laboratory projects focused on examining early life stress and poverty, and the effects these emotional experiences have on child development, with the goal in mind of developing intervention strategies for at-risk children and families.
Aditi Hosangadi, Graduate Student
B.S., University of California, Davis (Psychology)
Email: hosangadi@wisc.edu
I am interested in the mechanisms behind how early experiences help children learn to understand and empathize with the people around them. Specifically, I’m interested in factors in a child’s early social environment (e.g. parent emotionality and emotion-language-use, or sibling and peer interactions) and in other experiences that provide a window into perspectives outside their own (e.g. narratives from books and other media). I hope that my work can help inform early social-emotional education.
Laura Jett, Graduate Student
B.S., 2021, University of California – Davis (Cognitive Science)
Email: ljett@wisc.edu
Children learn by exploring the world around them and by trying new things—ranging from a baby putting everything in their mouth, to a teen talking to new people at a party. Individuals differ in how much they are willing to explore and take risks, and these differences may influence social-emotional development. I am interested in how children’s environment and experiences shape exploration and risk-taking, and how exploration supports the development of social-emotional skills. I hope that this work can be used to inform targeted interventions and policy to improve children’s well-being.
Saideeka Jones, Graduate Student
B.A., 2022, Rutgers University (Psychology)
E-mail: srjones6@wisc.edu
I am interested in how children’s upbringing, socio-economic status, and culture play a part in their long-term outcomes in life. Most know that certain circumstances make it harder for some children to succeed than others, but what is less clear is what allows some to reach expected life markers versus others who seem to fail and/or develop mental disorders due to a lack of emotional wellness. I hope to work towards unearthing more information on this subject.
Diego Placido
B.A. in Psychology, Brandeis University (Neuroscience & Computer Science Focus)
Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology, University of California, Davis (Minor in Quantiative Psychology; Computational Social Science Designated Emphasis)
In my research, I examine the role of external sensory information—particularly caregiver unpredictability—on children’s adaptive cognitive and emotional regulation. I apply a multi-modal approach that includes behavioral, psychophysiology, and computational modeling measures to understand when seemingly “immature” regulatory strategies reflect adaptive responses to environmental demands. This work reframes developmental variability as potentially adaptive and seeks to uncover mechanisms linking environmental context to regulatory development.
Andrea Stein, Graduate Student
B.A., 2014, Yale University (Ethics, Politics & Economics)
M.A., 2015, Teachers College, Columbia University (Elementary Inclusive Education)
E-mail: agstein@wisc.edu
We all experience and encounter emotions in diverse, complicated ways. Sometimes we smile in happiness, while other times we might cry; in some contexts, a frown suggests anger, while in others it merely suggests concentration. Yet even in the face of this complexity, we somehow develop distinct understandings of a number of emotion concepts, which we use to construe our own and others’ emotions. My interests are in the social, cognitive, and linguistic mechanisms by which children learn such emotion concepts from a complex environment, as well as how representations of these concepts change across the lifespan.
FALL 2026 UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS
ETHAN BLUM
NOEL BRUSNAHAN
WILL BUSH
ANNA EISENEGGER
PAYTON FULLER
ALYSON HOLUB
CARLY JOHNSON
KAYLEIGH LARA
SHEA LUO
ELLA MEUDT
MADDIE PECAK
ISABELLE PARR
CLARA SAINZ PRATS
MAXWELL RAYNES
GABRIELLA WALDRON
AMBER WEISS
HANNAH WEISSMAN
AUDRIANA ZEUSKE
Child Emotion Lab Alumni
Erin Eatough, PhD
Assistant Professor
Baruch College/The Graduate Center
City University of New York
Joseph L. Flanders, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Psychology
McGill University
Jamie L. Hanson, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Psychology
University of Pittsburgh
http://www.jamiehanson.org
Madeline Harms, PhDAssistant ProfessorDepartment of Psychological ScienceUniversity of Minnesota
Lori M. Hilt, PhD
Milwaukee-Downer College and College Endowment Association Professor of Liberal Studies and Professor of Psychology
Department of Psychology
Lawrence University
Jessica Jenness, PhD
Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington
Hannah Kramer, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Psychology
University of Rochester
Brian Leitzke, PhD
Clinical Health Psychologist
UW Health
Alyssa Lovely
Jennifer McDermott, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Psychology
University of Massachusetts-Amherst
http://www.umasslearninglab.com
Susan Perlman, PhD
Associate Professor of Psychiatry
Washington University- St. Louis
Rista Plate, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
University of Pennsylvania
Barb Roeber
Sarah E. Romens, PhD
Clinical Psychologist
The Psychology Center
Manjeri Senthilmurugan
Jessica Shackman, M.D., PhD
Emergency Medicine Physician
Howard County General Hospital
Katherine Shannon Bowen, PhD
Pediatric Neuropsychologist
Seattle Children’s Hospital
Elizabeth Shirtcliff, PhD
Research Professor
University of Oregon
Karen Smith, PhD
Assistant Professor
Rutgers University, Psychology Department
https://karenesmithphd.com/
Nicole M. Strang, PhD
Research Scientist
Center for Addiction and Mental Health
University of Toronto
Alison B. Wismer Fries, PhD
Infant, Early Childhood, and Family Mental Health Consultant
Waupaca County Department of Health and Human Services
Yuyan (Lillian) Xu, PhD