FRC Graduate Students


Irina Mokrova graduated from Moscow State University in Russia with a BA in Psychology. Irina completed her Master's and is working on her PhD in HDFS. Her research interests include development of motivational domain in children and its relations with emotional and cognitive domains, family influences on motivational development, and cross-cultural differences. She is part of the STAR research team. She runs visits with children, collects and enters data, and performs other tasks related to the project.


Jackie Nelson is an PhD student in the Human Development & Family Studies department. She received her BA from Elon University in Psychology with a minor in Sociology. Jackie collects and codes data for the STAR Project, assessing how emotional and cognitive development influence social competence and school readiness in young children. She is interested in early emotion knowledge and the influence of emotional socialization in the family.

Nicole Brown graduated from Arizona State University in Psychology. Currently she is in the HDFS MS/PhD program with research interests in social emotional development of infants and young children within the context of school and family, academic readiness, and using research to inform public and social policy. She works with children during their visits and helps with coding data for the STAR Project.

Chantelle Wolpert is working on her PhD in HDFS. She is both a board-certified genetic counselor and a physician assistant. She spent the last twelve years working at Duke University Medical Center primarily with families diagnosed with inherited disorders, including neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism. She received her BS in Health Sciences from SUNY at Sony Brook, an MBA in Health Care Administration Baruch College, and trained as a genetic counselor at the Mt. Sinai Genetic Counseling Program. Her research interests include understanding aspects of family interpretation of genetic information and/or genetic diagnosis and how this interpretation may ultimately affect their views of themselves, their child and other family members. At the FRC, Chantelle will be working with the Guilford Genomic Medicine Initiative.

Recent FRC Alumni

Rebecca Curtis was the Data Manager for the STAR Project and the Home Visit Coordinator for the Right Track Project (Psychology). She has her BS in Human Development and Family Studies with a concentration in Early Care and Education. She is working towards her MA in the Conflict Resolution program at UNCG. Her research interests include the necessary skills sets for children in a globalized society as well as curriculum and program development in conflict resolution.

Austin Cavanaugh was a Research Assistant for the STAR Project. He holds a BA in Psychology, with a minor in Philosophy, from UNC. His research interests include attitudes in general, but especially implicit attitudes and their influence on cognitions, as well as the application of psychological research methods to the exploration of philisophical issues such as morality and the free will/determinism debate.

Korinne Chiu was the Project Coordinator for the STAR Project in Year 3. She holds an master's degree from Wake Forest University in Experimental Psychology. She completed her Master’s thesis on how preschoolers make personality judgments of others based on behaviors and intentions. She worked for two years at the Winston-Salem Children’s Developmental Services Agency providing early intervention services to children from birth to three years of age. Her research interests include the influence of sociodemographic factors on children’s social-emotional and cognitive development.

Nayena Blankson, PhD was the Postdoctoral Research Associate on the STAR Project in Year 3. She holds a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Southern California, where she studied with the late Dr. John L. Horn and Dr. Rand Wilcox. Her Ph.D. dissertation was on the measurement of, and relationships among, shyness, attachment security, and cognitive abilities. Her research interests include (1) the design of psychological research, particularly the design for research on infant and child development; (2) measurement invariance, multivariate mathematical/statistical methods, and structural equation modeling; and (3) the organization and development of cognitive abilities as it relates to personality, attachment security, and schooling.

Parita Vithlani graduated from North Carolina State University with a BA in Psychology. Parita worked on the STAR project collecting, entering, and analyzing data. As part of her research interests, she wants to explore protective factors contributing to the positive socio-emotional development of children. Furthermore, she would like to engage in theory-driven research that will guide and inform the development of intervention programs designed to help students achieve social and academic successes.

Ben Hinnant completed his PhD in Human Development and Family Studies in 2008. He graduated from Clemson University with a BS in psychology and a minor in sociology. He spent the 2003-2004 academic year working with three-and-a-half year olds in the STAR pilot project assessing the contributions of cognitive and emotional factors to early academic achievement and social competence. Since the spring of 2005, Ben has been conducting home observations of school-aged children for the Right Track project. Most recently he has returned to work with the current STAR project. During 2007-2008, Ben was a predoctoral fellow at the Center for Developmental Science at UNC-Chapel Hill while working at the FRC. He is interested in children's cognitive and emotional development, particularly the development of prosocial-related behaviors including empathy, emotion regulation, and moral reasoning.

Lauren Keel Shinn was the Project Coordinator for the STAR Project in Years 1-2. She completed her MS in HDFS. Her Master's thesis focused on gendered communication in parent-child dyads. Her research interests include children's peer interactions and knowledge of social norms.