People
Lab Director
Dr. Ramani is an Associate Professor in the Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology. Before coming to University of Maryland in 2008, Dr. Ramani received her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from the University of Pittsburgh and worked as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Ramani teaches undergraduate and graduate classes in cognitive development. Her research centers around social influences on cognitive development, namely mathematics and problem solving.
To read select publications please visit Geetha's Research Gate.
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Graduate Students
Nicole Scalise
nbrooke@terpmail.umd.edu
Nicole is a fifth-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology. Prior to returning to school, Nicole earned her Ed.M. in Human Development and Psychology from Harvard and worked for two years as a research and evaluation analyst at Abt Associates in Bethesda. Nicole is interested in children's early understanding of number, including how informal learning activities and interactions with parents and early childhood educators can build their foundational knowledge.
Mary DePascale
mdep@terpmail.umd.edu
Mary is a third-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology. She earned her B.A. in Psychology from Wesleyan University. Before graduate school, she worked for two years as a research assistant in the Early Childhood Cognition Lab at MIT and as an education intern at the Children’s Museum of NH. Mary is interested in children’s mathematical and social learning, and how children learn through play, games and informal social interactions.
Raychel Gordon
rjgordon@umd.edu
Raychel is a second-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology. Before becoming a Terp, she earned her B.A. in Psychology from Boston University, and then spent two years working as a lab manager at the Boston College Infant and Child Cognition Lab. Raychel is primarily interested in how children can use embodied practices and gestures to learn new math concepts (such as pointing while counting), as well as how children can more broadly learn from informal or play-based interactions.
Lab Manager
Fatou Gaye
fgaye1@umd.edu
Fatou graduated from the University of Maryland in 2018 with a B.S. in Psychology and minor in Neuroscience. During her undergraduate years she worked as a research assisstant in the Lab for Early Social Cognition and Roesch Lab at UMD. She is interested in studying social and cognitive factors that influence reading and math skills aquisition in typically and atypicaly developing children. In the future, she hopes to attend graduate school to pursue a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology.
Lab Alumni
Nadia Tavassolie
Nadia worked as lab coordinator in the ECI lab until 2019. She is currently in graduate school pursuing a Ph.D. in Psychology at Temple University.
Emily Daubert
Emily earned her Ph.D. in Human Development and Quantitative Methodlogy from UMD in 2018, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Rutgers University-Newark. She is currently an assisstant professor in the department of Psychology at the University of Hawaii Mānoa.
Alaina Wodzinski
Alaina worked as lab coordinator in the ECI lab until 2018. She is currently in graduate school pursuing a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at Montclair State University.
Erica Zippert
Erica earned her Ph.D. in Human Development and Quantitative Methodology in 2016. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at Vanderbilt University.
Sarah Eason
Sarah earned her Ph.D. in Human Development and Quantitative Methodology at UMD in 2015, then completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Chicago. She is currently an assisstant professor in the Human Development and Family Studies Department at Purdue University.