Director

Carla Sharp

Carla Sharp, Ph.D. is the John and Rebecca Moores Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Houston and Associate Dean for Faculty and Research. She also directs the Adolescent Diagnosis Assessment Prevention and Treatment Center and the Developmental Psychopathology Lab at the University of Houston. Her work has significantly advanced the scientific understanding of the phenomenology, causes, correlates and treatment of personality and pathology in youth. Her work makes use of mentalization-based framework to understand, prevent and treat personality and pathology in young people. She is the recipient of the 2016 Mid-career award, North American Society for the Study of Personality Disorders and the 2018 Award for Achievement in the Field of Severe Personality Disorders from the Personality Disorders Institute in New York. She is the current Associate Editor for APA journal Personality Disorders: Theory, Research and Treatment, and a workgroup member for updating the American Psychiatric Association practice guidelines for BPD. She has published over 300 peer-reviewed publications in addition to numerous chapters and books with an h-index of 65. She is the lead author on Building resilience: the Mediational Intervention for Sensitizing Caregivers (Routledge, 2022), and Mentalizing in psychotherapy: A guide for practitioners (Wiley, 2022).

Lab Manager

Aashna Shah

Aashna is the Lab Manager for the Developmental Psychopathology Lab at the University of Houston. She is currently a junior working towards her B.S. in Psychology. She joined the lab in December 2023 and her research interests include cultural factors that contribute to suicidal ideation in minorities, the mistreatment of post-partum depression/psychosis amongst South Asians, and comorbidity amongst personality disorders. She aspires to pursue a PhD in Clinical Psychology.

Assistant Lab Director

Madeleine Allman

Madeleine is a fifth-year doctoral student in the Developmental Psychopathology Lab. Madeleine earned her B.S. in Psychology and Public Health from Tulane University in December 2016 and her Masters of Public Health in Epidemiology from Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in December 2017. After graduating, she came to Houston to work in global health research at Baylor College of Medicine. Madeleine is interested in caregiver-child relationships, especially how they are impacted by exposure to trauma and interventions that address the impact of adversity in caregiver child relationships. Madeleine defended her masters thesis analyzing the impact of the Mediational Intervention for Sensitizing Caregivers (MISC) on Social Cognition among Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) in South Africa. She is also working on her dissertation project focusing on MISC’s implementation in the context of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV), which is funded by an NIH F31 predoctoral fellowship. Madeleine is also interested in the assessment and treatment of emotional and behavioral disorders in children and adolescents.

Research Coordinator

Nabeeha Asim

Nabeeha graduated from the University of Houston in 2021 with a B.A. in Psychology and minors in Medicine and Society and Human Resource Management. She joined the lab in May 2018 as a research assistant and is now the research coordinator for an NIH-funded project testing the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary outcomes of MISC for mothers who are survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV).

Clinical Psychology Graduate Students

Kennedy Balzen

Kennedy is a third-year doctoral student in the Developmental Psychopathology Lab. She earned her B.S. in Psychology with a minor in Neuroscience from the University of Texas at Dallas in 2020. After graduating, she worked at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center as a research coordinator on several studies investigating suicide prevention and depression in youth. Kennedy is interested in research that aims to refine the dimensional conceptualization of personality pathology. Particularly, she is interested in research on the Alternative Model for Personality Disorders (AMPD), with a focus on the measurement of self and interpersonal-functioning and the utility of narrative identity for identifying personality pathology in youth. 

Kiran Boone

Kiran is a second-year doctoral student in the Developmental Psychopathology Lab. Prior to coming to UH, Kiran earned her BA in Psychological and Brain Sciences from Washington University in St. Louis, where she also worked as a research assistant in the Early Emotional Development Program. Her current research interests center on personality disorder development, assessment, and early intervention, and on supporting healthy personality development across childhood and adolescence. She is also interested in applying a strengths-based and culture-informed approach to research and clinical practice and in reducing stigma surrounding mental health.

Bree Cervantes

Bree is a fourth-year doctoral student in the Developmental Psychopathology Lab. She earned her B.A. in Psychology and Social Behavior from the University of California, Irvine in 2018. After graduating, Bree spent three years as a research coordinator on several studies implementing attachment-based and parenting interventions. Bree is interested in the role of parent-child relationships in the development of psychopathology in children and adolescence, with an emphasis on attachment, parenting, and specific caregiver factors (e.g., reflective function, psychopathology). Her master’s thesis examined associations between maternal reflective function (RF) and adolescent personality pathology using the Parent Development Interview (PDI). Bree is currently working on her dissertation project, which employs the Observing Mediational Interactions (OMI) coding system to assess maternal RF through in-vivo caregiver interactions during a parent-adolescent conflict paradigm and test associations with maternal RF assessed representationally (via the PDI).
 

Tess Gecha

Tess is a third-year doctoral student in the Developmental Psychopathology lab. In 2020, she earned her B.A. in Psychology from Georgetown University. After graduating, she moved to Boston to work as a research assistant at McLean Hospital. Tess is interested in exploring the impact that personality disorder within a family member has on the family system and working toward improving existing mentalization-based interventions that work with parents with personality disorder, hoping to increasingly incorporate fathers in the process. Her master’s thesis explored the moderating role of reflective function on the relationship between maternal personality functioning and parent emotion socialization. 

Students Currently on Internship

Sophie Kerr

DPL Alumni

Kiana Cano, Ph.D

Ronnie McLaren, Ph.D

Eric Sumlin, Ph.D

Francesca Penner, Ph.D.

Salome Vanwoerden, Ph.D.

Claire Hatkevich, Ph.D

Allison Kalpakci, Ph.D.

Will Mellick, Ph.D.

Carolyn Ha, Ph.D.

Tyson Reuter, Ph.D.

Amanda Venta, Ph.D.

Elizabeth Ross, Ph.D.

Robert Seals, Ph.D.

Heather Pane, Ph.D.

Kelly Green, Ph.D.

Stephanie Kovacs, Ph.D.

Teona Amble, Ph.D.

Ilya Yaroslavlsky, Ph.D.

Dan Mortenson, Ph.D.

Research Assistants

Mai-Brie Conklin

Mai-Brie joined the lab as a post-bacc research assistant in October 2023. She earned her B.S. in Psychology with an emphasis in Behavior Analysis and her B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Florida in May 2023. Her research interests include caregiver-child relationships, attachment, and the effects of family structure on psychopathology in youth. She plans to pursue a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology.

Tya Chakaroun

Tya Chakaroun is a fourth-year undergraduate student at the University of Houston pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Psychology with minors in Biology and Honors Medicine and Society. She holds an Honors Associate of Science from the Honors College at Lone Star College- CyFair. Throughout her time at the Honors College at Lone Star College-CyFair, she conducted four semester-long research projects in her Honors classes and has presented her research at the Honors College Undergraduate Research Day as well as the International Education Biennial. Her research interests focus primarily on the medical field with interests in psychopathology and its effectiveness, especially in children and young adults. She plans to pursue a career in medicine as a doctor.

Peyton Erb

Peyton joined the lab as a post-bacc research assistant in August of 2024. She graduated from Indiana State University in 2022 with a B.S. in Psychology as well as minors in both Human Resource Development and Counseling. Her goal is to obtain valuable research experience to go on to pursue a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology. Peyton is interested in various aspects of psychopathology and hopes to further her knowledge and education to positively contribute to the field of psychology.

Zoe Hosten-Broadwater

Zoe is currently enrolled in her last semester at Adelphi University and is set to receive her undergraduate psychology degree in December of 2024. She joined the lab as a volunteer research assistant in the summer of 2024 in hopes to familiarize herself with a formal research lab setting and prepare to pursue a Ph.D in Clinical Psychology. Her current research interests include psychopathology, but specifically personality disorders, as well as personality assessment and multi-method assessment. She has also conducted previous research on multi-method assessment in the context of Dependent Personality Disorder and presented her findings at the 2024 Eastern Psychological Association conference in Philadelphia, PA.

Alnoor Hasanov

Alnoor is a fourth-year undergraduate student at the University of Houston pursuing a B.S. in Psychology and a minor in Human Development and Family Sciences. He joined the lab in the Fall of 2023 as an undergraduate research assistant. Still currently finding his research interests, his current interests include parent-child relationships and psychopathology / mental health in teens and young adults. He plans to go to graduate school in order to become a mental health counselor.

Helene Morford

Helene is working on a double degree, one in Psychology and one in Digital Media. During high school, Helene completed an associate degree with a focus in computer science at Utah Tech University, before moving to Texas to continue his education. Helene plans to continue their education in the future hoping to continue into graduate school. She is focused on learning the effects of different disorders on someone's life, the development and prevention of certain disorders, and how to improve the quality of life someone has with a disorder. Helene hopes to use his education in Psychology and Digital media to help make the world a safe and better place for those who are neglected by the way the world works currently.

Anabella Revilla

Anabella is a junior in Biology, B.S. at the University of Houston, minoring in Mathematics with the plan of going to Medical School after graduation. She is a science lover and joined the lab right before Summer 2024 to navigate social and psychological sciences. She is looking forward to learning about the various research topics going on in the lab and finding her own research interest along the line.

Hannah Wolf

Hannah joined the lab in November 2022 as an undergraduate and graduated from the University of Houston in May 2023 with a B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Interpersonal Communication. She is dedicated to gaining valuable research experience with the goal of pursuing a master’s in counseling psychology. With a strong interest in child development, Hannah is committed to expanding her knowledge and skills to make significant contributions to the field of psychology and enhance her impact on understanding and supporting mental health.

Tongyao Ran

Ran joined the DP Lab as a volunteer research assistant in the Spring of 2023. She did her undergraduate at Beijing Foreign Studies University majoring in International Relations. She then obtained her M.S. in counseling in May 2024. Now she is a project coordinator at the University of Missouri. Broadly, Ran's research interests include the classification and intersection of psychopathology and personality pathology, transdiagnostic constructs and processes, and how psychopathology is manifested and maintained in daily life.