Leigha MacNeill, Ph.D.

Leigha MacNeillLeigha is a first-year postdoctoral fellow and received training from the Developmental Psychology Ph.D. program at Pennsylvania State University. Her program of research integrates family systems models and biological perspectives to investigate children’s self-regulation across multiple levels of analysis. Specifically, she examines how factors extrinsic (e.g., family, SES) and intrinsic (e.g., child temperament, biology) to the child contribute to their development of self-regulation over time, as well as how these regulatory trajectories can place children at risk for internalizing problems. She takes a multi-method approach to her research, including autonomic physiology, EEG, ERP, mobile eye-tracking, daily diaries, and observations of family interactions.

Her dissertation used multiple methods to study how the family and child’s temperament contribute to individual differences in children’s attention processes. By taking biopsychosocial and multi-method approaches to developmental science, her research strives to elucidate constellations of risk factors for internalizing problems and how they develop over time. As a postdoctoral fellow, she aims to build on her previous training by examining family systems and child self-regulation development in the context of poverty.