Research in the Appal TREE (Training and Research about Early Experiences) Laboratory is a collaborative effort among undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty. In general we are interested in child development, but we are particularly curious about the development of eating behavior and food preferences in children. Our lab group typically meets each week to plan and organize our ongoing research and to discuss the latest and most exciting literature related to our work. Students in the lab gain experience recruiting participants, collecting data, analyzing data, and presenting findings at local and national conferences. We are also in the process of publishing some of our findings from a project we have worked on for the past two years, which we call the Sibling Study. For this study, we have collected information from families who have two children in order to learn about parents’ and children’s perceptions about similarities and differences in siblings. We are excited about the preliminary findings from this study and look forward to analyzing the data further. I am working to develop a cross-cultural study with colleagues in the United Kingdom and South Korea.

In addition to conducting research with students, teaching is one of my favorite things to do. The courses I teach usually include Human Growth & Development, Research Methods, and a graduate course called Teaching of Psychology. I have co-taught Ecopsychology and hope to teach it again in the future. Many of the students from my lab group have taken Research Methods with me, so they have the benefit of being familiar with my research before they join my lab.