Professional Bio

Kivilcim is a fourth-year graduate student in the developmental psychology program. She earned her master's degree in Psychological Sciences from Bogazici University/Turkey, focusing on the effects of maternal control and warmth on early self-regulation during a laboratory prohibition task. Primarily working with Dr. Erika Lunkenheimer, with Dr. Koraly Pérez-Edgar as her secondary advisor, her research centers on parent-child interactions, exploring how dyadic states such as mutual positive/negative affect or contingent behaviors between parent and child are linked to parent-related risks (e.g. parenting stress, harsh parenting) and child behavioral problems in early childhood. Currently, she serves as a team lead for a NIMH-funded R01 project, microcoding parent-child interactions in laboratory settings, and processing parents’ and children’s heart rate variability during parent-child dyadic tasks.