Our Team
Principal Investigator
Heather J. Risser, PhD | heather.risser@northwestern.edu
Dr. Risser’s research focuses on violence prevention, child welfare, parenting, and access to parenting and mental health promotion services for underserved children and families. Additionally, Dr. Risser leads her team in providing training, evaluation, and technical assistance to DCFS. Dr. Risser is particularly interested in combining frameworks within psychology, psychiatry, and neuroscience to identify and address modifiable risk factors to prevent child physical abuse.
Graduate students
Linzy Pinkerton – Doctoral Student | linzypinkerton2025@u.northwestern.edu
Linzy is a doctoral student in the Mental Health Services and Policy Program at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. She is passionate about community-based solutions for preventing violence and trauma and improving community mental health outcomes. Linzy is interested in working with children, adolescents, and their support systems to promote resiliency and raise awareness of strengths.
Ashley N. Murphy, MS, MA – Doctoral Student | ashley.murphy@northwestern.eduAshley is a doctoral student in Dr. Risser’s lab. She graduated from Northwestern’s Clinical Psychology M.A. Program in 2020 and has an M.S. in Special Education. She studies how to best support and empower parents of children with special health care needs, focusing on addressing disparities in access to mental health care. She also develops and evaluates programs to support parents of children in child welfare and special education settings.
Yufan Wang “Baby” – MA Student | yufan.wang@northwestern.edu
Baby is a MA student in Dr. Risser’s lab. She graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 2024 with a B.A. in Psychology and Business. Her research interests include developing accessible and creative family- or community-based interventions for disadvantaged children with mental health needs. She is especially interested in working with neurodivergent and special needs children.
Kamryn Reynolds – MA Student | kamryn.reynolds@northwestern.
Kamryn graduated from Florida State University in Spring 2024 with a B.S. in Behavioral Neuroscience and a minor in Chemistry. Her main research interests are developmental disorders in youth, such as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and how their affiliated diagnostics can be relieved through therapeutic interventions. She is also interested in finding new and effective programs to support the parents of youth with special health needs, as these interventions will provide the foundation for an educated support system at home.
Staff/Volunteers
Miguel Herrera, MEd, LPC | miguel.herrera@northwestern.edu
Miguel Herrera is a research coordinator with Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences working under Dr. Heather Risser and Dr. Ashley Knapp. Miguel has degrees in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from DePaul University and in Psychology and Latinx Studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Miguel’s research interests are focused on supporting the development, implementation, and dissemination of evidence-based and community-engaged mental health interventions for minority youth.
Clara Law, MA – Research Coordinator | clara.law@northwestern.edu
Clara is a research coordinator for Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. She graduated from Northwestern’s Clinical Psychology M.A Program in 2020. Her research interests are in understanding social and cultural factors related to anxiety and depressive disorders and how these factors can inform treatment development and dissemination.
Spencer St. Jean – Research Coordinator | spencer.stjean@northwestern.edu
Spencer earned her Master’s in Public Health with a concentration in Community Health Research from Northwestern University Feinberg School. Her background is primarily in data analytics and strategic planning within health care, government, and public health settings. She is passionate about understanding risk factors that affect mental health in children and adolescents and designing programs to support healing and resilience across communities.
Collaborators
LAB ALUMNI – Students
Allie E. Morford, PhD
Allie was a doctoral student in the Mental Health Services and Policy Program at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. Allie’s research interests include familial roles in the treatment of complex trauma, the role of emotion regulation as a predictor of child abuse, and how to translate this knowledge into effective trauma-informed prevention and intervention programs.
Katie Moskowitz, MA
Katie graduated from the Clinical Psychology Master’s student at Northwestern University’s Feinberg school of Medicine. Prior to joining the lab Katie graduated from Colgate University in 2018 and went on to work at the Child Mind Institute’s Healthy Brain Network in NYC. Katie’s research interests include understanding the transdiagnostic factors associated with child mental health disorders, and the dissemination and implementation of interventions in non-traditional settings to underserved youth and family populations.
Francesca graduated from the Clinical Psychology Master’s Student at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine. She received a B.A. in Psychological Science from Colgate University before working as a research assistant at the Child Mind Institute’s Healthy Brain Network. Her current research interests include understanding the protective and risk factors of youth suicidality in order to create scalable evidence and technology-based interventions.
Catherine Li, MA
Catherine graduated from Northwestern’s Clinical Psychology MA Program in 2022. She is interested in identifying transdiagnostic factors that confer risk and protection for youth psychopathology, evaluating the impact of positive parenting practices on the intergenerational transmission of mental health outcomes and on parent-child dynamics, and developing accessible and culturally-relevant services for under-served youth and families through dissemination and implementation science.
Emily Hersch, MA
Emily graduated from the Clinical Psychology MA program at Northwestern University in 2021. She is currently pursuing her PhD in Clinical Psychology at UMass Boston. Emily’s research interests include the development, evaluation, dissemination, and implementation of digital mental health interventions for youth and their families. Emily is passionate about improving access to mental health care through technology-enabled services.
Yexinyu “Yolanda” Yang, MA
Yolanda graduated from Northwestern’s Clinical Psychology MA Program in 2021. She is currently pursuing her PhD in Clinical Psychology at University of North Carolina. Her research interests include examining familial factors’ impact on children’s psychopathology and treatment outcomes, harnessing technology to enhance family-oriented evidence-based practice, and bridging the gap between research and services via implementation science.
Tamaki Hosoda Urban, PhD
Tamaki graduated from Northwestern’s Clinical Psychology PhD Program in 2020. Her dissertation focused on psychotherapy effectiveness for young children exposed to violence. Tamaki is involved in research and clinical work at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical school through the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) fellowship award and will continue her work there after receiving funding from the American Diabetes Association award. Tamaki’s research interests include psychological trauma, child maltreatment, child welfare, and pediatric psychology.
LAB ALUMNI – Staff/Volunteers
Rachel Velez Kermath
Rachel was a Project Manager for the Family Care Parenting Lab. She is lifelong Chicagoan who received her B.A in Psychology from DePaul University and her M.A. in Social Work from Loyola University Chicago. For 20 years, Rachel served in several varied roles for Illinois’ child welfare system before joining our team in 2022. Her areas of interest include working to improve the lives of vulnerable children and families, supporting children identified as diverse learners, the importance of cultural competency in research, and disseminating research aimed to improve the lives of underserved youth, their families and their communities.
Katherine Schumacher, BA
Kate was a Research Coordinator for the Family Care Parenting Lab. She graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2022 with a B.A. in Neuroscience and Behavior. Her research interests lie within the intersection of physical and mental health, evaluating how trauma, adverse childhood events, and other social determinants of health affect the body, brain, and development of mothers and children. She is currently pursuing her MD.
Ellie Clark, BA
Ellie was a Research Coordinator for the Family Care Parenting Lab. She received a B.A. in Psychology from The University of New Mexico. Ellie’s research interests include early life trauma and adverse childhood experiences’ role in family dynamics and youth outcomes, focusing on parent-child relationships and the impact these relationships have on a child’s socioemotional and behavioral development. She is currently pursuing her PsyD.
Madeline (Madzie) Carroll, BA
Madzię Carroll was a research assistant for our asthma intervention study. She is currently finishing up her medical degree at Rush University. She graduated from Wesleyan University in 2017 with a BA in biology. She is passionate about preventive medicine and health equity.
Maggie Doheny, BS
Maggie Doheny is currently pursuing her PhD in Human Factors and Cognitive Psychology at the University of Central Florida. Her research interests include cognitive neuroscience, trauma management, physiological changes during anxiety and trauma, and decision making after trauma.
Marlise was a volunteer in the Family Care Parenting Lab. is a medical student at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine. Her research is focused on the delivery of healthcare to sexual assault survivors. She has a passion for trauma-informed health care and health equity. Prior to medical school, she worked for the U.S. Administration for Children and Families on child welfare, human trafficking, and early childhood education. For fun, she enjoys long walks and listening to podcasts.