PI and Graduate Students
Elizabeth Davis
Associate Professor
PhD., UC Irvine, 2009
Office: PSYCH 3115
Phone: (951) 827-5236
Email: elizabeth.davis@ucr.edu
My research focuses on understanding how emotion regulation relates to adaptive outcomes (e.g., learning) and maladaptive outcomes (e.g., anxiety) in childhood. Emotion regulation can be broadly defined as the set of processes by which people influence the timing, expression, and experience of their emotions. Learning to regulate negative emotion is one of the most important tasks of childhood, with far-reaching consequences for children’s school adjustment, peer relationships, and mental health. My work to date has aimed to identify regulatory strategies that children can use to effectively alleviate negative emotion, and to identify individual differences in children’s biology and social experiences that determine whether they can regulate emotion effectively. My work also focuses on identifying mechanisms responsible for effective emotion regulation (e.g., attentional focus) to explain why certain emotion regulation strategies attenuate negative emotion and distress. Ultimately, I view this program of research as providing an empirical basis for interventions aimed at improving children’s emotion regulation abilities and mitigating risk for maladaptive outcomes.
Laura DeLoretta
Graduate Student
ldelo002@ucr.edu
My name is Laura and I’m a 5th year doctoral student. I’m originally from Philadelphia, PA, where I earned my BS in Psychology from the University of the Sciences. My primary research interest is learning how parents play a role in teaching children how to express and manage their emotions. I’m also interested in understanding how the stories our families tell might relate to how we respond to challenges in our lives. When I’m not studying, teaching, and researching, I enjoy going thrift shopping, sewing and crocheting, and traveling back home to see my nieces and nephews.
Shannon Brady
Graduate Student
sbrad034@ucr.edu
I’m Shannon, a fourth year graduate student in Dr. Davis’ Emotion Regulation Lab. My research interests lie at the intersections of emotion, language, and culture and my work tackles this in various ways: through the study of extra-lingual emotion words that have no direct translation in English, of Yucatec Maya children’s emotional responding to a structured disappointment task, of how aspects of linguistic and emotional complexity relate to emotion regulation strategy use, and of how self-talk may facilitate emotion regulation. When I’m not in the lab, I enjoy laughing at memes, watching crime dramas, and pampering my cat!
Kasey Pankratz
Graduate Student
kpank001@ucr.edu
Hello! I’m Kasey and I am excited to be a part of the Emotion Regulation as a fourth-year graduate student. My research focuses on understanding the different ways children respond to unusual social situations and why some children may struggle to regulate their emotions or interact with new people. I am particularly interested in understanding how children determine if a new situation is something they can handle or just too much to manage. As an undergraduate student at UC Santa Barbara, I studied topics such as instructional design, social cognitive development, and even gender equity. I love incorporating what I learned from those experiences into my teaching and services here at UC Riverside. In my free time, I love playing video games, trying out local restaurants, and watching scary movies.
Madeline Newman
Graduate Student
mnewm011@ucr.edu
Hello! My name is Madeline Newman and I am a fourth year graduate student in the Emotion Regulation Lab. Originally from Northern California, I received my BA in Psychology from Dominican University of California, then moved to Riverside in 2019 to begin researching the emotion regulation of children and parents. My research interests include interpersonal emotion regulation, parental autonomy support, motivation, and identity development in LGBTQ+ youth. When I’m not in the lab, you can find me hanging with my two cats, overwatering my plants, hiking at national parks, and reading science fiction.