Professional Bio

Makenna is a first-year graduate student in the Development, Risk, & Resilience Lab. Her research interests focus on the mechanisms by which parenting and parent-child interactions impact children’s socioemotional development within adverse contexts (i.e., socioeconomic adversity, substance exposure, parental psychopathology) and identifying pathways to resilience. Currently, Makenna is interested in investigating how intrusive and sensitive parenting practices influence children’s emotional development. Makenna graduated summa cum laude from Bucknell University in May 2023 with a B.A. in Psychology and Economics with departmental honors where she worked closely with Dr. Chris Boyatzis. She held a post-baccalaureate position in the Development, Risk, & Resilience and Exercise Psychology labs at Penn State as Project Coordinator for the PA Birth Cohort Study.