I am a former special education teacher who specializes in executive functioning and stress disorders in youth. My work now is as an educational neuroscientist examining the role of context in the development of cognitive processes in children and adolescents, with a special focus on childhood maltreatment, other violence exposure, and poverty, and how those exposures influence cognitive processing development using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Using cognitive neuroscience, cognitive science, and developmental methods, my work explores poverty and language development; effects of exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) on child adjustment; and violence exposure and the development of school-related functioning. In addition to fMRI and MRI methods, I have used survey and neuropsychological methods.
The focus of the Brain CaNDY (Cognition and Neurodevelopment in Youth) Lab is the role of trauma and stress on the developing brain, with a particular emphasis on childhood maltreatment and other violence exposures. Currently, we are focused on examining the neurocognitive correlates of childhood maltreatment using the ABCD data and a pilot fMRI study called SMART Kids (Study of memory, attention, reading, and thinking).
The goal of the study is to define the brain basis of adverse cognitive consequences of childhood maltreatment (CM), which is the combined term for child abuse and neglect. Although there has been great progress in understanding the role of early life adversities (ELA) on the development of psychopathology, there is limited research on behavioral and neuroscience models of academic deficits in this population. In the project will identify CM neural patterns in a large adolescent sample of normative development (ABCD) and SMART Kids, a newly acquired substantiated CM sample, develop best practice neuroscience methods for smaller CM-specific cohorts, test a mechanistic theory, and work with community partners toward intervention development.
As a postdoctoral scholar, I spearheaded a research project aimed at investigating cognitive function in pediatric post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I recruited 8-17 year olds with PTSD and control groups of youth with trauma but otherwise healthy, youth with ADHD but no trauma, often a first diagnosis for youth with trauma exposure, and health controls. The findings of this study unveiled a linear progression of brain function from anterior-rostral to dorsal-posterior prefrontal cortex (PFC), suggesting a developmental shift in cognitive control mechanisms.
As an undergraduate and during my master’s work at Hampshire College and Harvard University, I conducted ethnographic studies of adolescent learning that inspired me to think deeply about youth exposed to violence. My current scientific motivation stems from postgraduate work as a special educator in settings with students in some form of foster care (mostly due to CM) who had high rates of cognitive deficits. Of many instructive moments, one stands out. One day, I asked my class to turn in homework, and a very smart young woman with a history of sexual abuse (and a love of learning) started crying, ran from the room, and started pounding her head, full force, against the concrete wall. This moment catalyzed my conviction in the need to better understand and address the long-term consequences of CM.
I returned to academia to investigate the problem of how violence exposure and academic experiences work together to result in differences in educational attainment. I received my Ph.D. in developmental psychology and education from the University of Michigan (UM) and was awarded an additional certificate from the Development of Psychopathology and Mental Health program, designed to train interdisciplinary researchers in both developmental and clinical science. I also completed a NIMH traineeship in Interdisciplinary Research on Family Violence and Mental Health (T32 MH020041). I examined exposure to violence from a developmental perspective and found that the age of onset and cumulative exposure were related to negative behavioral outcomes.
My dissertation project investigated violence histories in incarcerated youth and their association with cognition. Published as an open data resource, findings from that work included high rates of cognitive disabilities related to rates of violence exposure, clusters of youth with both high violence exposure and low cognitive control who were particularly vulnerable to mental health and academic problems, identifying deficits in cognitive control mediating the relation between violence exposure and later mental health problems, and, published this year, that CM is a predictor of medical problems in youth. What this study found was that violence was related to later functioning deficits that are the building blocks of adult success, particularly CM. These findings further underscore the importance of cognition in children with violence exposure and helped me to expand on those connections in two theoretical papers. I received numerous awards, including internal awards of excellence, the Spencer Foundation, and an award from the Center for the Education of Women.
To further my ability to examine cognitive outcomes, I made a move to the Psychiatric Affective Neuroimaging Lab (PANLab) and the Trauma, Stress, and Anxiety Research Group (TSARG) in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Michigan. I was awarded a Clinical Translational Fellowship from the Michigan Institute for Clinical and Health Research (MICHR – UL1 TR000433) under the mentorship of Drs. Chandra Sripada and James Swain, with training in clinical interviewing and assessment provided by the child and adolescent section faculty. This training well-positioned me to build my expertise in neuroscience. I developed and implemented a study of cognitive function in pediatric post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In a paper published in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, I was able to determine a linear development of brain function from anterior-rostral to dorsal-posterior PFC, suggesting a developmental change in cognitive control. I had the opportunity to study cognitive-emotion neuroanatomical connectivity, the developmental mechanism of cognitive control using functional neuroimaging in both group analyses and native space analysis, diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), and functional connectivity in the brains of healthy youth throughout development and in pediatric PTSD. My study revealed that cognitive control is disrupted in children with trauma exposure, suggesting a neurodevelopmental mechanism for educational and social delays in children who have been exposed to trauma (Perkins, SC, et al, under review). I conducted a second study of the neural consequences of the chronic stress of poverty, focusing on language processing with the PI, Dr. James Swain. I found disrupted language and cognitive control processing networks in adults with childhood poverty backgrounds, a novel finding in the field.
After a significant gap in my research career due to a medical condition, I was awarded an NICHD re-entry grant as a supplement to The Center for Innovation in Child Maltreatment Policy Research and Training (CICM) at Washington University in St. Louis under the mentorship of Drs. Melissa Jonson-Reid and Deanna Barch (3P50HD096719-05S1). This allowed me to return to my research, receive additional training in CM, and update my neuroscience skills. The award, granted to approximately nine people annually across all NIH divisions, positions me to take this next step toward promotion within the research faculty track at ISR. I developed three new and three revised publications during the re-entry grant. This award completed my transition back into the research community and prepared me for independent external funding to accomplish my career goals. The award allowed me to examine the scope of current research into CM and cognition in an fMRI meta-analysis14 and develop a framework for identifying CM in large data.
In 2025, I was awarded an NICHD K01 Mentored Research Scientist Award (1K01HD114900-01A1) to study the neurocognitive outcomes of CM (Understanding the Cognitive Neural Signatures of Childhood Maltreatment in Adolescents as a Means to Advance the Science of Targeted Academic Intervention for this Vulnerable Population).
I have a longstanding interest in how childhood maltreatment (CM) and cognitive deficits are related and how certain contexts influence both. This scientific question is critically important to the 8 million children referred annually for abuse and neglect, and the society that cares for them. I would like to develop neuroscience-informed targeted interventions for this group.
I have started a new project with a co-I at OSU where we are using AI to examine rates, types, and outcomes of abusive and intentional head trauma in family violence. Head traumas in domestic violence, abuse, and neglect are understudied. We often think of shaken baby syndrome in children under five, which can be catastrophic and lead to major impairments or death. There is much less work on how common head injuries are in older children and adults who are intentional and from abuse, such as mTBI and concussion. We are going to use large national data to explore this.
Only about nine people a year are awarded a re-entry across all of the NIH agencies.
I believe that I am the first person in four years to have a K01 from the trauma branch of NICHD, even though child abuse is a major focus area for them.
I was a delegate for Hillary Clinton in 2016.