Developmental Psychopathology and Violence Prevention Lab

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Tasha R. Howe

Dr. Howe is a developmental psychologist who specializes in child abuse prevention and developmental psychopathology. She is on the national research team and is a lead trainer for the American Psychological Association's childabuse prevention parenting program, ACT Raising Safe Kids. Her latest project is the 3nd Ed. of her textbook Marriages & Families in the 21st Century: A Bioecological Approach (Sage Publications). She has worked on international child welfare issues as a four-time Fulbright Scholar, in 2008 in Cyprus, 2014 in Croatia, 2017 in Russia and 2021 in Colombia. She often works on program development and program evaluation as well as training frontline practitioners on issues such as the neuroscience of trauma and how to implement evidence-based practices with families and children. 

Lab Organization and Focus

Tasha encourages students to find areas of interest for themselves instead of having everyone work on one larger project of hers. More advanced students serve as mentors to newer students and graduate students mentor undergraduate students. Most of Tasha's students typically use an attachment theory framework to design their studies but they are free to use their own ideas as long as they use a developmental perspective. There are usually opportunities for undergraduate students to do literature searches, summarize articles, collect data, enter and clean data, and assist graduate students with their thesis work. Undergraduates may also design their own studies for the Senior Honors Thesis (a one-year capstone experience). The lab has one-way mirrors, a children's playroom, and surveillance equipment that can be used to record interviews or child and family behaviors.

Dr. Howe is not currently accepting students into her lab.