Margaret Friend, Ph. D, Director

Friend received her Ph.D from the University of Florida. She has studied at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, UCSF, and UC Berkeley. She is a faculty member in Psychology at SDSU and the SDSU/UCSD Joint Doctoral Program in Language and Communicative Disorders.

Amy Pace

Pace received her B.A. in Spanish Literature and Political Science from UCSD and is currently a doctoral student in UCSD/SDSU Joint Doctoral Program in Language and Communicative Disorders. Pace's research focus is action processing and verb acquistion in early childhood.

Adrianne Simpson, M.A.

Simpson received her Master's degree in Psychology in Summer 2008 after completing a thesis on the relation between the home literacy environment and early language. She is an adjunct professor at Mesa and Miramar Colleges in San Diego and continues to collaborate on literacy research in the lab.

Sara Schmitt, M.A.

Schmitt received her B.A. in Psychology from University of Wisconsin- Madison. She completed her Master's thesis in child language development and is conducting her doctoral studies in Human Development and Family Sciences at Oregon State University. She continues to collaborate on literacy research in the lab.

Caitlin Phillips

Phillips received her B.A. in Psychology from Northeastern University and is currently in her first year of the M.A. program at SDSU. With an emphasis in Developmental Psychology, her research focus is maternal responsiveness as a predictor of language development.

Michelle Jackson

Jackson received her B.A. in Psychology and Art from UC Santa Barbara and is currently pursuing her M.A. in Psychology at SDSU. Jackson's research focuses on children's narratives, vocabulary acquisition, and the home literacy environment.

McKenzie Lewis

Lewis receieved her B.A. from SDSU and is completing her Master's degree in Psychology. One of her research interests is the decline of reading among adolescents and college students and its impact on achievement.

Tamara Headley

Headley received her B.A from SDSU while assisting with the verb learning studies. She graduated with honors and is currently exploring employment opportunities in the private sector.

Iris Broce

Broce is a fourth year Psychology student at SDSU. As an undergraduate research assistant, she assists in a study involving the relation between event segmentation and verb acquisition in early childhood.

Taryn de Neve

de Neve is an undergraduate research assistant at SDSU majoring in Psychology. de Neve helped with a study on the effects of the decline in literary reading among college students. She is currently assisting in verb learning studies in the lab.

Lillian Kaur

Lillian received her B.A. in Comparative Literature and German from UC Berkeley.  Her interest in research and psychology began in 2004, and she plans to pursue graduate study. Kaur is assisting on data analysis of mother responsiveness in the home literacy development.

Heather Garner

Garner received her B.A. in Psychology and a French minor from San Diego State University in 2009. She is assisting with a behavior re-enactment study, focusing on event segmentation of action sequences in early childhood. Garner plans to attend a Master's Program in Clinical Psychology.

Sarah Sabia

Sabia is a fourth year undergraduate at SDSU concentrating on Psychology and Art History. Our newest research assistant, Sabia keeps busy contacting parents and assists in scheduling appointments for them to bring their children to the lab.