Current Lab Members
Madison McCall
5th Year Doctoral Candidate
Madison received her B.S. in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Virginia in 2016. Following graduation, she completed a fellowship in the Maternal and Child Health Bureau LEND program and a research assistantship in computational behavioral science at Georgia Tech. Madison’s current research focuses on developing, disseminating, and evaluating digital tools that advance mental health care delivery for underserved children and their families. She hopes to translate her research into equity-centered design and implementation strategies that improve the effectiveness, sustainability, and scalability of technology-enhanced treatments. In her free time, Madison enjoys reading, coding, singing, and spending time with her friends and family.
Yexinyu “Yolanda” Yang
3rd Year Doctoral Student
Yolanda received her B.A. in Psychology and Politics at Washington and Lee University in 2018. She adopted her initial interest in parenting research when she worked toward her M.A. in Clinical Psychology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in 2021, where she worked on developing an emotion-regulation-focused online parenting program. At UNC, she expands her passion for parenting research to the context of behavior disorders and behavioral parent training. She hopes to enhance the accessibility and effectiveness of services for children and parents, especially through personalization and technology use. In her free time, Yolanda loves reading, hiking, playing jigsaw puzzles, trying out new restaurants, hanging out with her pet bunny Whisky, and traveling to look for crazy-flavored chocolate.
Grace Cain
2nd Year Doctoral Student
Grace received her B.A. in Psychology at Bryn Mawr College in 2020. During her undergraduate degree, she worked as a counselor at Camp Baker, a Summer Treatment Program (STP) based out of the Judge Baker Children’s Center. Following her graduation, she worked as a research assistant at the Pediatric Anxiety Research Center at Bradley Hospital in Providence RI, where she acted as a mobile exposure coach for the IMPACT study. At UNC, she is excited to explore ways to improve the implementation of behavioral parent training and work to increase access to effective mental health services for underserved families. In her free time, Grace loves cooking, riding her bike, listening to podcasts, and playing board games with friends and families.
Alanah Claybaugh
1st Year Doctoral Student
Alanah received her B.A. in Biology with minors in psychology and philosophy from the University of Arkansas in 2020. To further her knowledge of psychology, she pursued a master’s degree in Clinical Psychological Science at the University of Maryland. During that time, she also conducted research with the Maryland ADHD Program, which focuses on exploring ADHD and other internalizing and externalizing disorders at a family level. At UNC, she looks forward to exploring ways to improve the dissemination and implementation of behavioral parent training in community settings, with a particular recognition of factors, including adverse experiences, interpersonal relationships, parental emotion regulation difficulties, and membership in underserved communities, that may influence child outcomes. In her free time, Alanah enjoys cooking new dishes with her boyfriend, drinking her morning coffee while watching the news, and forcing her friends and family to play Yahtzee with her.
NAZARET SUAZO
1st Year Doctoral Student
Nazaret received her B.A. in Psychology from the University of Rhode Island in 2019, where her interest in cultural influences on emotion regulation began. Following graduation, she worked on several studies at Brown University focused on the implementation of brief interventions for court-involved youth, adolescents with suicide risk, and families. These experiences combined furthered her interest in understanding the ways in which cultural factors (familism, individualism/collectivism, discrimination, etc.) may underlie emotion regulation processes among individuals from marginalized groups. At UNC, she is looking forward to exploring how cultural differences within multigenerational households may impact emotional processing and socialization following trauma exposure, as well as how to connect families to resources in their communities in culturally appropriate ways. In her free time, Nazaret enjoys thrifting, studying fashion history, trying new recipes, and going for walks.
Mariana Gonzalez
Undergraduate Student
Mariana Gonzalez is a senior undergraduate student at UNC majoring in Psychology and minoring in Neuroscience. She is interested in clinical interventions targeted to help underrepresented families. Mariana is the recipient of the 2023 J. Steven Reznick Diversity and Psychological Research Grant at UNC. At the Family FIRST Lab, she is focusing on coding therapy sessions for behavioral parent training. In her free time, Mariana enjoys exploring biking trails, doing arts and crafts, drying flowers, and taking care of her plant babies.
May (Yinuo) Liu
Undergraduate Student
May (Yinuo) Liu is a senior student from Hangzhou, China, double majoring in psychology and computer science. She has been working as a research assistant in Brain and Early Experience (BEE) Lab since the summer of 2022 and volunteered for the Brain and Early Experience Study as a data collector and analyzer. She joined the Family FIRST Lab as an undergraduate volunteer and worked on behavioral parent training therapy session video encoding. She is also a counselor for Crisis Text Line and has helped more than 100+ texters cope with their crisis. In her free time, May enjoys reading books and playing Nintendo Switch. After graduation, she plans to pursue a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and investigate psychological interventions.