University of Oregon Staff
Alyssa Rayhel
Project Coordinator
University of Oregon
Alyssa received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communication Disorders & Sciences from the University of Oregon in 2007. After graduating, Alyssa began a career in research as an interviewer for a study that involved working with the Oregon foster care community and families involved with Oregon social services. While continuing her work on other research projects, she also joined EGDS as an interviewer in August 2008. Over the years Alyssa has progressed into different roles within the EGDS which include: participant recruitment, data management and assessment coordination. In July 2014, Alyssa transitioned into the Project Manager role for the University of Oregon site. She works closely with Principal Investigator, Dr. Leve, and manages all of the EGDS projects at the UO. Alyssa enjoys working with the EGDS participants and team members across sites. She is interested in continuing to expand her knowledge about child development and family dynamics.
Kelsey Van Brocklin
Data Manager/Recruiter
University of Oregon
Kelsey joined the Early Growth and Development Study’s team in June of 2014. Since 2009 she has been working in research, on multiple research projects. Kelsey’s focus has been primarily on children and families and promoting early success in school. She contacts birth families for participation across multiple projects for the Early Growth and Development Study. Kelsey is also the Data Manager for the Early Growth and Development Study and coordinates School Data Collection. Outside of work, Kelsey enjoys spending time with family and friends and is actively involved in her two children’s school and sports activities.
Mary Wood
Recruiter
University of Oregon
Mary received a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Psychology from the University of Oregon in 2016. Prior to joining the Early Growth and Development Study’s team in February of 2018, Mary was the lead research assistant and recruiter in the Stress Neurobiology and Prevention Lab at the University of Oregon. In this position she conducted parent interviews and child assessments, as well as recruited and scheduled families to participate in different projects within the lab. For the EGDS, Mary contacts adoptive families for participation across multiple EGDS projects. In the future, Mary hopes to continue her education to become an Occupational Therapist to work with children with developmental delays.
Debbie Pierson
Interviewer
University of Oregon
Debbie has a Bachelor of Arts degree from University of Oregon in Sociology. She has been an interviewer on a number of different research projects and has been with the Early Growth and Development Study since 2009. Her favorite part of this job is the traveling and meeting of new people. Her interests include travel, baseball, films, food, reading, swimming, and Australian animals. Especially wombats.
Denise Ford
Interviewer
University of Oregon
Denise earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from the University of Oregon. She spent 18 years at the Oregon Social Learning Center (OSLC) interviewing, recruiting, coding, and coordinating home, school, and laboratory assessments. She conducted more than 2000 interviews and observations during her time at OSLC. Denise began working on EGDS in 2002 at The University of California, Davis. Outside of work she spends her time on cat rescue, sewing, and gardening.
Katie Remmers
Interviewer
University of Oregon
Katie received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from the University of Oregon in 2015. During her undergraduate studies she worked on multiple research projects with a specialization in EEG data collection. After graduation, she worked with foster families at Oregon Community Programs. She joined the Early Growth and Development Study as an interviewer and research assistant in December of 2016. Katie assists with birth family recruitment, scheduling, and data collection.
Sally Guyer
Data Analyst
University of Oregon
Sally joined the Early Growth and Development Study in December 2007. Sally has worked extensively with the EGDS data sets including cleaning, scaling, organizing, and distributing files for the investigators. She also maintains the project data documentation and oversees the school and teacher data collection. She works with the cross-site data management team to ensure consistency in the distributed data sets. Sally has worked on numerous research projects since 2000 and has experience in multiple roles of data collection.
Hannah Tavalire, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Scholar
University of Oregon
Hannah received her doctoral degree in Integrative Biology from Oregon State University in 2017. Her broad research interests center around determining the genetic and environmental basis for phenotypic traits using genomic and classical quantitative genetics approaches. Her PhD work focused on characterizing resistance to tuberculosis in wild mammals and determining the genetic and functional immune basis for this trait. As she transitions into the world of human subjects research, Hannah is interested in applying a quantitative genetics approach to identify heritable components of the microbiome and other related child health traits within the unique EGDS adoption dataset.
Brian Carper
Computer Programmer
University of Oregon
Brian has a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the University of Pittsburgh. After supporting a research project for the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center for two and a half years, Brian moved to Eugene, Oregon in autumn 2007 to begin work for the Early Growth and Development Study. Brian programs the computerized interviews for the project, designs the study websites, maintains the interviewers' laptops, and manages the study data. Brian currently resides in Canada, where he works remotely for the EGDS team.
The Pennsylvania State University Staff
Amanda Broderick, M.S.
Project Coordinator/Recruiter
The Pennsylvania State University
Amanda Broderick earned her Bachelor of Arts (Psychology) degree from the University of Michigan in 2011 and her Master of Science (Clinical Psychology) degree from the Pennsylvania State University in 2016. She is currently a Child Clinical Psychology doctoral student at Penn State. Since her time as an undergraduate, Amanda has acquired research experience with children of all ages, including collecting data and implementing interventions. Amanda joined the EGDS team in 2017 and is currently the EGDS-ECHO project coordinator for the Penn State site, where she works as a participant recruiter and manages day-to-day site operations. Amanda is excited to work with EGDS families because they can help us answer important questions about child development.
Elizabeth Shewark
Recruiter
The Pennsylvania State University
Elizabeth is in her sixth year of the Developmental Psychology area Ph.D. program at The Pennsylvania State University. She earned her Bachelor of Science degree in psychology, summa cum laude, from the University of Mary Washington and attained her Masters of Arts in Applied Developmental Psychology from George Mason University (GMU). Elizabeth is currently working with Dr. Jenae Neiderhiser examining the development of children’s social and emotional competency, within the context of the family and schools. Elizabeth’s role on the Early Growth and Development is to contact adoptive families for participation as well as interviews.
Allison Mitchell
Recruiter
The Pennsylvania State University
Allison graduated from Schreyers Honors College at Penn State in 2009 with a bachelors degree in Human Development and Family studies and from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania in 2014 with her MSW. Allison’s main duties include recruitment, interviewing adoptive parents, requisitioning medical records, and looking after the day to day aspects of the study at the Penn State site.
Mari De Araujo-Greecher
Data Manager
The Pennsylvania State University
Mari earned her Ph.D. in Psychobiology at the University of Sao Paulo, S.P., Brazil in 1999. She worked as a post-doctoral fellow in the Nutrition Department at PSU where she studied the interaction between gene and anxiety on binge-eating behavior. Prior to joining the Early Growth and Development Study she worked in the field as a preschool teacher. For the Early Growth and Development Study, Mari works with the data and oversees the collection and coding of medical records.
The George Washington University Staff
Amy Whitesel, Ph.D.
Project Coordinator - Assistant Research Professor of Psychology
The George Washington University
Amy received her doctoral degree in Social Work from Howard University in 2008. Amy also is a licensed clinical social worker in the State of Maryland. Amy has been working in the field of adoption, both as a clinician and as a researcher, for the past 20 years. Much of her work has focused on birth parents and their adjustment post adoption. Amy has been a part of the Early Growth and Development Study since it's start in 2002. She leads the George Washington University site in its operation of the various EGDS studies. Amy particularly enjoys her interactions with birth parents, noting that birth parents seem to feel honored to be a part of the study and thankful for their relationship with our study over the years. She hopes that the Early Growth and Development Study will help the adoption community better understand the life-long impact of making an adoption plan.
Kathy Mion
Recruiter
The George Washington University
Kathy received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Boston University and worked in the publishing industry before entering the research field. She joined the psychology department at George Washington University in 2007 as a field interviewer for the Stress and Job Loss Project, and has conducted various aspects of research at GWU including screening and recruiting study participants, conducting telephone and in-person interviews, and extracting and coding data. For the Early Growth and Development Study- Health, she also coordinated the collection of child medical records. Kathy is excited to be working with birth families again on the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) program.
© 2014 Early Growth and Development Study
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