Dr. Elif Isbell is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at the University of California Merced and the director of the IDEA research group. She completed her Ph.D. in Psychology (cognitive neuroscience) in the Department of Psychology at the University of Oregon (mentors: Helen Neville, Edward Vogel, Edward Awh). She worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oregon (mentor: Nash Unsworth), and then in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (mentors: Susan Calkins, Esther Leerkes). She was a National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) T32 Postdoctoral Fellow in Developmental Psychology in the Department of Psychology at the University of Michigan (mentors: Frederick J. Morrison, Pamela Davis-Kean, and William Gehring).
Amanda Peters is a 2nd-year doctoral student in Developmental Psychology. She graduated from the University of Michigan in 2021 with a B.S. in Biopsychology, Cognition, and Neuroscience. Broadly, she is interested in examining the links between socioeconomic status, household characteristics, and cognitive control development in early childhood.
Dylan Richardson is a 2nd-year doctoral student in the Developmental Psychology program. He is a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellow. He earned a B.A. in Psychological Sciences from UC Merced in 2021. His research interests broadly revolve around how socioeconomic status relates to the development of cognitive control in children. He is especially interested in inhibition and the auditory system, which led him to study auditory selective attention. Along with auditory selective attention, he is interested in how SES might relate to other processes central to the auditory system.
Nancy Rodas De Leon is a 2nd-year doctoral student in the Developmental Psychology program. She earned a B.S. in Cognitive Science from UC Merced in 2021. Her research focuses on how diverse bilingual language experiences and environmental factors contribute to the neurodevelopment of cognitive control in children and adolescents.
Stephanie Morales Linares is the lab coordinator of the IDEA research group. She is a fourth-year undergraduate student (Psychology major, Philosophy minor). She is broadly interested in developmental psychology and cognitive sciences.