{"id":45,"date":"2020-07-05T12:35:08","date_gmt":"2020-07-05T16:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/calf\/?page_id=45"},"modified":"2025-10-01T12:33:42","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T16:33:42","slug":"meet-the-team","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/calf\/meet-the-team\/","title":{"rendered":"Who We Are"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\t\tMeet the Team\n\t<\/h2>\n\t

Led by Prof. Eliza Congdon, our research team is made up of undergraduate students at Williams College. All of us love working with children and are enthusiastic about the various topics we study. If you’re a Williams student interested in joining the lab, please visit the Join Us<\/a> page to learn more about the research experience and how to get involved.\u00a0<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\"Congdon006\n

Professor Eliza Congdon\u00a0<\/h3>

Lab Head<\/p>\n\t

Eliza Congdon has a PhD in Developmental Psychology from the University of Chicago and has taught at Bucknell University (Assistant Professor 2017-2019). She is currently teaching at Williams College as an Assistant Professor of Psychology. She is interested in how children learn novel ideas from their own actions and hand gestures as well as from the actions and hand gestures of those around them. We all spontaneously gesture while we talk, but in young learners, those gestures can reveal implicit, unspoken ideas that the children are not yet able to verbalize out loud to a teacher or parent. In this way, we know that gestures are an integrated and crucial part of the cognitive and linguistic system. Her work investigates when and how we can harness these special properties of gesture to help children gain insights in problem-solving scenarios in ways that spoken instruction alone cannot. Her primary domain of interest for this research with children is mathematics, as she believes that early success (and confidence) in math for both boys and girls is a vital foundation for all later academic successes.<\/h5>\n

\n\t\tUndergraduate Assistants\n\t<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\"Screenshot\n

\n\t\tMyla Vera ’26\n\t<\/h2>\n\t

Research Assistant<\/em><\/p>\n

Hello! My name is Myla, and I’m a prospective psychology major from Houston, Texas. I am interested in research that focuses on kid’s cognitive development, so working in the CALF lab is a great match. The way children’s minds work is fascinating, and I always enjoy when I can learn their personalities (or favorite show!)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I am studying away at WEPO in London this year, but I’m excited to return to the CALF lab next year!<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\"Screenshot\n

Sophie Possick ’28<\/h3>

Research Assistant<\/em><\/p>\n

Hi there! My Sophie and I am a prospective Psychology, Studio Art, and English major from New Haven, Connecticut. I am fascinated with all aspects of developmental psychology, especially Autism Spectrum Disorder, which I researched this summer at Mount Sinai’s Seaver Autism Clinic. In the \u00a0Williams Psychology Department, I am thrilled to be working with the CALF Lab and Professor Engel’s Program in Teaching.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\"IMG_5368\"\n

Emily Villegas Garcia ’26<\/h3>

Research Assistant<\/em><\/p>\n

Hi everyone! My name is Emily, and I am a senior from Houston, TX majoring in Psychology and Biology. I have spent a lot of time working with kids throughout my life and these interactions have shaped my interests in the intersection between child development and medicine. I believe that we have so much to learn from children and about children, so I am thrilled to be a part of the CALF lab!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\"IMG_7057\"\n

Joanna Gentle ’28<\/h3>

Research Assistant<\/em><\/p>\n

Hi everyone! My name is Joanna Gentle, and I am a prospective Psychology and Political Science major from Norwalk, Connecticut. I have worked as a first grade camp counselor over many summers and also lifeguarded for swim lessons in the past. I really enjoy working with kids and learning about how they develop their opinions through interactions with the world around them!<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\"65EBF2C7-05CE-4E04-873C-9243368E69AB_1_105_c\"\n

Olivia Helfrich-Tapia ’26<\/h3>

Research Assistant<\/em><\/p>\n

Hi! My name is Olivia and I am a senior majoring in Psychology and Spanish with a concentration in LATS from Newton, MA. I also work at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston as a school and work coach for the ASPIRE clinic. I am also working on a subcommittee at the hospital which focuses on increasing access to Spanish speaking services for people struggling with psychosis. I am really interested in supporting children from marginalized identities with their learning and school experiences, especially when a language barrier exists.<\/p>\n

\n\t\tLab Alumni\n\t<\/h3>\n\t

Dan O’Connor, Psychology, B.A. (2025),\u00a0<\/strong>is a teaching apprentice in a second-grade classroom at Brookwood School in Manchester, MA, and is currently an M.Ed. student at Lesley University.<\/p>\n\t

Hannah Dineen, Psychology, B.A. (2025), <\/strong>is a Clinical Research Coordinator at the Ammon-Pinizzotto Center for Women’s Mental Health at Massachusetts General Hospital.<\/p>\n\t

Angie An, History, B.A. (2025)<\/strong><\/p>\n\t

Isabel Rodden, Psychology, B.A. (2024), <\/strong>is a Sara S. Sparrow Fellow at the McPartland lab at Yale University and wants to study developmental\u00a0pediatrics or child psychiatry after.<\/p>\n\t

Daniela (Dani) Galvez-Cepeda, Psychology & Mathematics B.A. (2024),\u00a0<\/strong>is a graduate student at the University of Michigan, pursuing her PhD in developmental psychology and focusing\u00a0on how media influences children’s gender identity\u00a0development. Her current email is\u00a0danigc@umich.edu<\/a>.<\/p>\n\t

Gabriela (Gabi) Kovarsky Rotta, Psychology & English, B.A. (2023)<\/strong>, is a Clinical Research Assistant at McLean Hospital’s CARE Lab in Belmont, MA, working on an R01 that examines the effectiveness of a digital intervention on the transmission of anxiety from parents to their children. Her current email is gkovarskyrotta@mgb.org<\/p>\n\t

Karla Mercedes, Psychology, B.A. (2023)<\/strong>, is a Lab Manager at the University of Delaware’s Speech, Language Acquisition and Multilingualism (SLAM) Lab. Her current email is kmmerced@udel.edu<\/p>\n\t

Maddie Moore, Psychology & Comparative Literature, B.A. (2023)<\/strong>, is a pre-medical post baccalaureate student at Columbia University in Manhattan, working on completing her pre-med requirements and exploring medical school admissions. Her current email is mm6420@columbia.edu<\/p>\n\t

Lauren Menjivar, Psychology, B.A. (2022),\u00a0<\/strong>is working as a classroom assistant for a 2nd grade class at Princeton Day School. Her email is\u00a0lmenjivarseeds@gmail.com.<\/p>\n\t

Lili Massac, Psychology w\/ concentration in Neuroscience, B.A. (2023),\u00a0<\/strong>is a Senior at Williams who hopes to pursue a career in pediatric mental health.<\/p>\n\t

Margaux Kanamori, Psychology & English w\/ concentration in Public Health, B.A. (2023), <\/strong>is a Junior at Williams who hopes to pursue a career in Psychology or Psychiatry.<\/p>\n\t

Masa Peterson, Psychology & Biology w\/ concentration in Neuroscience, B.A. (2020), <\/strong>is a Teach For America Corps member who teaches first grade in Richmond, CA. She aspires to teach for a while and pursue graduate school in developmental\/education psychology.<\/p>\n\t

 <\/p>\n

Campbell Day, Psychology w\/ concentration in Neuroscience, B.A. (2020)<\/strong>, works at Trinity in Boston doing health care\/life science consulting.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Meet the Team Led by Prof. Eliza Congdon, our research team is made up of undergraduate students at Williams College. All of us love working with children and are enthusiastic about the various topics we study. If you’re a Williams student interested in joining the lab, please visit the Join Us page to learn more…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2391,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-45","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/calf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/45","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/calf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/calf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/calf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2391"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/calf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45"}],"version-history":[{"count":84,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/calf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/45\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":608,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/calf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/45\/revisions\/608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/calf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}