2019–2020 MPSI Team

Faculty

Wendy Reinke, Ph.D., Co-Direc­tor (School Psy­chol­o­gy)

Dr. Wendy Reinke com­plet­ed her doc­tor­al train­ing in school psy­chol­o­gy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ore­gon and is cur­rent­ly an Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor in School Psy­chol­o­gy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mis­souri. She teach­es class­es on pre­ven­tion of emo­tion­al and behav­ior dis­tur­bances in chil­dren, pub­lic health per­spec­tives, research design, and evi­dence-based prac­tices for chil­dren with emo­tion­al dis­tur­bances. Pri­or to com­ing to MU, she was a Pre­ven­tion Sci­ence Fel­low at Johns Hop­kins School of Pub­lic Health. Her research focus­es on pre­vent­ing dis­rup­tive behav­ior prob­lems in chil­dren. Dr. Reinke is also an expert in teacher con­sul­ta­tion mod­els in class­room man­age­ment and is the devel­op­er of the Class­room Check-Up. She is the co-author of two books on the top­ic of teacher con­sul­ta­tion, includ­ing one with Randy Sprick and Jim Knight enti­tled Coach­ing Class­room Man­age­ment and anoth­er with Kei­th Her­man and Randy Sprick enti­tled Moti­va­tion­al Inter­view­ing for Effec­tive Class­room Man­age­ment: The Class­room Check-up.

Kei­th Her­man, Ph.D., Co-Direc­tor (Coun­sel­ing Psy­chol­o­gy)

Dr. Her­man is a Pro­fes­sor in the Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion­al, School, & Coun­sel­ing Psy­chol­o­gy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mis­souri. Dr. Her­man pri­mar­i­ly teach­es doc­tor­al course­work in the areas of par­ent behav­ior man­age­ment, devel­op­men­tal psy­chopathol­o­gy, and research design. Orig­i­nal­ly trained as a coun­sel­ing psy­chol­o­gist at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Flori­da, Dr. Her­man retrained in school psy­chol­o­gy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ore­gon and also com­plet­ed post­doc­tor­al fel­low­ships at Brown Uni­ver­si­ty and Johns Hop­kins Uni­ver­si­ty. Before join­ing the depart­ment at Miz­zou, he was a fac­ul­ty mem­ber in the School of Med­i­cine at Johns Hop­kins Uni­ver­si­ty. His research takes a pre­ven­tion sci­ence approach to under­stand­ing, pre­vent­ing, and treat­ing child depres­sion. He has devel­oped a con­cep­tu­al mod­el describ­ing social devel­op­men­tal path­ways to child depres­sion with empha­sis on mod­i­fi­able aspects of school­ing and par­ent­ing that con­tribute to chil­dren’s risk. This mod­el has informed the devel­op­ment of school and fam­i­ly inter­ven­tions for chil­dren who are depressed.

Aaron Thomp­son, Ph.D., Asso­ciate Direc­tor (Social Work)

Dr. Aaron M. Thomp­son com­plet­ed his PhD in Social Work at the Uni­ver­si­ty of North Car­oli­na at Chapel Hill. Pri­or to this, Aaron worked as a coun­selor and spe­cial edu­ca­tor in a juve­nile deten­tion facil­i­ty, as an edu­ca­tion­al dis­abil­i­ty eval­u­a­tion spe­cial­ist, and as a pub­lic school social work­er and prin­ci­pal. Cur­rent­ly, Aaron is an Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor in the School of Social Work at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mis­souri and the Asso­ciate Direc­tor of the Mis­souri Pre­ven­tion Sci­ence Insti­tute.  Aaron’s research inter­ests include the ori­gins of men­tal and behav­ioral health issues among youth, train­ing for school-based men­tal health ser­vice providers, and the devel­op­ment and eval­u­a­tion of ear­ly pre­ven­tion and inter­ven­tion efforts to improve school readi­ness and reduce dis­rup­tive and aggres­sive behav­iors for high risk chil­dren. Aaron is the devel­op­er of The Self-Man­age­ment Train­ing and Reg­u­la­tion Strat­e­gy (STARS), and the Prin­ci­pal Inves­ti­ga­tor on a $3.5M US Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion award to test the effects of STARS using a ran­dom­ized con­trol tri­al with 5th grade stu­dents who present chal­leng­ing class­room behav­iors. Aaron is also the Prin­ci­pal inves­ti­ga­tor on a $4.1M con­tract with Boone Coun­ty, Mis­souri to devel­op the Fam­i­ly Access Cen­ter of Excel­lence of Boone Coun­ty and the Co-Prin­ci­pal Inves­ti­ga­tor with Dr. Wendy Reinke on the Boone Coun­ty Schools Men­tal Health Coali­tion.

Dr. Fran­cis Huang

Fran­cis Huang, Ph.D., Method­ol­o­gy Branch (Edu­ca­tion­al Research Meth­ods)

Dr. Huang is an expe­ri­enced man­age­ment con­sul­tant and quan­ti­ta­tive researcher. He cur­rent­ly teach­es sub­jects relat­ed to linear/nonlinear regres­sion, mul­ti­vari­ate sta­tis­tics (e.g., fac­tor analy­sis, dis­crim­i­nant analy­sis, clus­ter analy­sis), and data man­age­ment. Research inter­ests focus on the use of applied quan­ti­ta­tive meth­ods for pol­i­cy analy­sis (e.g., bul­ly­ing, school vio­lence, lit­er­a­cy growth), large scale data analy­sis, birth­date effects/season of birth research, and the devel­op­ment and val­i­da­tion of empir­i­cal­ly sup­port­ed mea­sures and scales.

Clark Peters, Ph.D., Pre­ven­tion Pol­i­cy Branch (Social Work)

Clark Peters, PhD, MSW, JD, is an asso­ciate pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mis­souri School of Social Work and Tru­man School of Pub­lic Affairs, focus­ing his work pri­mar­i­ly on child wel­fare, ado­les­cents in state care, and juve­nile jus­tice. He is also is a Pol­i­cy Fel­low at the Insti­tute of Pub­lic Pol­i­cy, holds a cour­tesy appoint­ment at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mis­souri School of Law, and is a Fac­ul­ty Direc­tor of Youth Devel­op­ment at the Cen­ter for Social Devel­op­ment at Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty is St. Louis. As a Skad­den Fel­low at the Youth Law Cen­ter in San Fran­cis­co, he rep­re­sent­ed youth in the child wel­fare and juve­nile jus­tice sys­tems in civ­il rights actions. He has pre­sent­ed, taught, and writ­ten wide­ly on issues of juve­nile jus­tice, fos­ter care, and child wel­fare. His cur­rent research work focus­es on youths in fos­ter care, finan­cial capa­bil­i­ty, asset build­ing, and youth engage­ment, and appears in Social Work, the Mis­souri Law Review, Jour­nal of Pub­lic Child Wel­fare, and the Chil­dren and Youth Ser­vices Review.

Chris Riley-Till­man, Ph.D., Mea­sure­ment Branch (School Psy­chol­o­gy)

In his cur­rent posi­tion, Dr. Riley-Till­man pro­vides train­ing in assess­ment, inter­ven­tion and con­sul­ta­tion. He brings qual­i­fi­ca­tions in the areas of applied behav­ior analy­sis, behav­ioral assess­ment, aca­d­e­m­ic assess­ment and inter­ven­tion, and the devel­op­ment and val­i­da­tion of assess­ment and inter­ven­tion method­olo­gies which are both empir­i­cal­ly sup­port­ed and fea­si­ble. His research inter­ests involve social behav­ioral assess­ment, aca­d­e­m­ic assessment/intervention, and con­sul­ta­tion. He has authored over 60 arti­cles, book chap­ters and books. Dr. Riley-Till­man serves as Co-Prin­ci­pal Inves­ti­ga­tor on Project VIABLE an IES-fund­ed grant with goals to devel­op and eval­u­ate pro­ce­dures for direct behav­ior rat­ing scales to effec­tive­ly and effi­cient­ly mea­sure stu­dent behav­ior. Dr. Riley-Till­man is cur­rent­ly serv­ing as an Asso­ciate Edi­tor for School Psy­chol­o­gy Forum and board mem­ber of School Psy­chol­o­gy Review.

Affil­i­at­ed Fac­ul­ty: 

Staff

Crys­tal Lewis, Direc­tor of Data Strat­e­gy 

Crys­tal over­sees research activ­i­ties occur­ring with­in the MPSI. Her role includes con­sult­ing on project coor­di­na­tion, data man­age­ment, analy­sis, and data visu­al­iza­tion. She holds a Master’s degree in Pub­lic Pol­i­cy from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Min­neso­ta and has been with the MPSI team since 2013.

Mar­cus Petree, Research Assis­tant

Mar­cus is a Research Assis­tant with the MPSI. He cur­rent­ly works as the project coor­di­na­tor for the CHAMPS, NIJ-START, and IES-SCSL projects under Dr. Her­man, help­ing to coor­di­nate research activ­i­ties with fel­low mem­bers of the team. He holds a bach­e­lor’s degree in Sec­ondary Social Stud­ies Edu­ca­tion from Miz­zou and has been a mem­ber of the MPSI team since August of 2013.

Ellen Wil­son, Research Asso­ciate

Ellen is a Research Asso­ciate and coor­di­na­tor of the STARS Project. Her role includes inter­ven­tion plan­ning, data man­age­ment, data track­ing and over­see­ing all logis­ti­cal aspects of the project. She received a Mas­ter’s degree in edu­ca­tion from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mis­souri in 2001 and has taught stu­dents from the preschool to the uni­ver­si­ty lev­el. 

Kali Falnes, Research Assis­tant

Kali is a Research Assis­tant with the MPSI. In her free time, she enjoys read­ing, run­ning, and camp­ing. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Psy­chol­o­gy from Mill­saps Col­lege. In the past she has worked as a men­tal health tech­ni­cian for ado­les­cents with men­tal health dis­or­ders as well as a research coor­di­na­tor for lab­o­ra­to­ries study­ing a vari­ety of top­ics such as sub­stance use, work­ing mem­o­ry, and anx­i­ety. Her research inter­ests include study­ing sub­stance use dis­or­ders, specif­i­cal­ly alco­hol mis­use as well as study­ing empir­i­cal­ly sup­port­ed treat­ments for men­tal health dis­or­ders. She is the project coor­di­na­tor for the DiS­CO project. She is excit­ed to focus her research on ear­ly assess­ment and pre­ven­tion of men­tal health dis­or­ders in young adults.

Car­olyn Con­way, Research Assis­tant 

Car­olyn is a research assis­tant at the MPSI as a cross-project sup­port. She recent­ly grad­u­at­ed with a Bach­e­lors in Psy­chol­o­gy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mis­souri and plans on going to grad­u­ate school for School Psy­chol­o­gy. She is excit­ed to be a part of the MPSI team and is look­ing for­ward to learn­ing more about pre­ven­tion sci­ence, with a spe­cif­ic inter­est in the pre­ven­tion of depres­sion and anx­i­ety.

David Aguayo, Post­doc­tor­al Research Assis­tant

I’m an edu­ca­tor by heart and train­ing! I oper­ate under a mod­el of poten­tial­i­ty: always look­ing on how to help improve myself and oth­ers. Specif­i­cal­ly, I’m inter­est­ed in help­ing indi­vid­u­als trans­form their edu­ca­tion­al sys­tem so that it works for them! Call me an activist schol­ar… or “here comes trou­ble!”

Chyn­na McCall, Post­doc­tor­al Fel­low

Chyn­na McCall earned her Ph.D. in School Psy­chol­o­gy from the Uni­ver­si­ty of North­ern Col­orado. She has been a School Psy­chol­o­gist in Col­orado work­ing with preschool-12th grade stu­dents. Dur­ing her time in Col­orado she worked on improv­ing school cli­mates to help pro­mote stu­dent iden­ti­ty devel­op­ment through school lev­el con­sul­ta­tion, con­sul­ta­tion with teach­ers, and indi­vid­ual and small groups with stu­dents. Her research focus­es on the cre­ation of a school envi­ron­ment that facil­i­tates proso­cial stu­dent iden­ti­ty devel­op­ment. Her work inves­ti­gates the influ­ence the school envi­ron­ment has on a student’s iden­ti­ty devel­op­ment, iden­ti­fy expres­sion (e.g., racial iden­ti­ty, gen­der iden­ti­ty, sex­u­al­i­ty, and inter­sec­tion­al­i­ty), and inter­nal and exter­nal behav­iors. Her exam­i­na­tion of this area also empha­sizes the affect implic­it bias and the result­ing stereo­typ­ing behav­ior (by school staff and fac­ul­ty as  well as oth­er stu­dents) has on a student’s iden­ti­ty devel­op­ment and result­ing inter­nal and exter­nal behav­iors. Her work con­cern­ing implic­it bias focus­es on how stereo­typed iden­ti­fy­ing char­ac­ter­is­tics (e.g., vocal prosody, body shape, skin col­or, etc.) of a cat­e­go­ry (e.g., race, gen­der, sex­u­al­i­ty, and dis­abil­i­ty) impact stu­dent iden­ti­ty devel­op­ment and their result­ing behav­iors and aca­d­e­m­ic achieve­ment.

Car­ole Kel­ley, START Prin­ci­pal Train­ing Coach

Car­ole Kel­ley has more than 30 years of edu­ca­tion­al expe­ri­ence in a vari­ety of roles: class­room teacher, col­lege advis­er, Advanced Place­ment coor­di­na­tor and school admin­is­tra­tor super­vis­ing a staff of 35 peo­ple. She has expe­ri­ence work­ing with gov­er­nance boards, com­mu­ni­ty foun­da­tions, grant writ­ing and inter­act­ing with pol­i­cy­mak­ers on issues relat­ed to state reg­u­la­tions and accred­i­ta­tion. Car­ole is the Okla­homa clin­i­cal instruc­tor and school lead­er­ship coach for the Pre­ven­tion Sci­ence Insti­tute. In schools across Okla­homa she coach­es admin­is­tra­tors and teach­ers on improv­ing their lead­er­ship skills. She also has con­sult­ed for urban turn­around schools to increase rig­or to the class­room, pro­vid­ed pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment to both fac­ul­ty and admin­is­tra­tive teams, and worked one-on-one to help teach­ers align les­son plans with Okla­homa State Stan­dards. She serves on the boards of direc­tors of the Okla­homa City Teach for Amer­i­ca and THRIVE, a Teen Preg­nan­cy Pre­ven­tion non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tion. She is an active mem­ber of the Okla­homa City Down­town Rotary Club.

Sher­ry Laby­er, Ed.D., START Prin­ci­pal Train­ing Coach

Dr. Sher­ry Laby­er has more than 30 years of expe­ri­ence in edu­ca­tion in a vari­ety of roles. She was as an ele­men­tary class­room teacher, school career and guid­ance coun­selor, assis­tant prin­ci­pal, prin­ci­pal, cur­ricu­lum direc­tor, assis­tant super­in­ten­dent, and super­in­ten­dent.  She was Exec­u­tive Direc­tor for the Office of Edu­ca­tion­al Qual­i­ty and Account­abil­i­ty for the state of Okla­homa.  Sher­ry teach­es edu­ca­tion­al lead­er­ship cours­es for the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cen­tral Okla­homa. Her doc­tor­al stud­ies are in Edu­ca­tion­al Lead­er­ship. She is the Okla­homa clin­i­cal instruc­tor and school lead­er­ship coach for the Pre­ven­tion Sci­ence Insti­tute, coach­ing admin­is­tra­tors and teach­ers across Okla­homa on improv­ing their lead­er­ship skills. Dr. Laby­er is a Cer­ti­fied Learn­ing Envi­ron­ment Archi­tect which enables her to devel­op online and blend­ed learn­ing cours­es for UCO.  She con­ducts work­shops on test tak­ing skills and pro­vides pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment for edu­ca­tors across  Okla­homa. She was appoint­ed by the Gov­er­nor of Okla­homa to serve on the Edu­ca­tion Over­sight Board and the Okla­homa Works career task force.  She worked exten­sive­ly with the Okla­homa State Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion to devel­op a fed­er­al required equi­ty plan, served on the teacher short­age task force, and career path­ways task force for Okla­homa stu­dents. She is past vice pres­i­dent of the Dun­can Cham­ber of Com­merce, past pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed Sub­ur­ban Schools Asso­ci­a­tion, and is an active mem­ber of the Coop­er­a­tive Coun­cil for Okla­homa School Admin­is­tra­tors.

Graduate Assistants

Kirsten Bak­er (School Psy­chol­o­gy)

Kirsten is a third-year doc­tor­al stu­dent in school psy­chol­o­gy. She received her under­grad­u­ate degree in Psy­chol­o­gy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Okla­homa. Kirsten has three years of expe­ri­ence with class­room inter­ven­tions as well as inpa­tient ser­vice. She is very excit­ed to join the MPSI team and learn more about pre­ven­tion sci­ence!

David Chuang (School Psy­chol­o­gy)

David is a sec­ond-year doc­tor­al stu­dent in School Psy­chol­o­gy at MU. He received his under­grad­u­ate degree from Cedarville Uni­ver­si­ty major­ing in Psy­chol­o­gy and minor­ing in Span­ish. Pri­or to com­ing to MU, David worked as a con­fer­ence coor­di­na­tor and an assis­tant for an assess­ment clin­ic, pri­mar­i­ly engaged with clin­i­cal and foren­sic eval­u­a­tions. His research inter­ests include cul­tur­al­ly respon­sive school prac­tices and racial/ethnic dif­fer­ences in school cli­mate. He looks for­ward to con­tin­ue learn­ing evi­dence-based inter­ven­tions and large-scale sta­tis­ti­cal analy­sis with the MPSI team!

Megan Cloud (School Psy­chol­o­gy)

Megan is a Mis­souri native and 1st-year school psy­chol­o­gy Ph.D. stu­dent under the men­tor­ship of Dr. Wendy Reinke. In 2016, she received her bach­e­lor of sci­ence in psy­chol­o­gy (sum­ma cum laude) from Uni­ver­si­ty of Mis­souri-St. Louis. Megan then worked in trans­la­tion­al neu­ro­science for 2 years at Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty School of Med­i­cine. Her great­est fear is not hav­ing access to good cof­fee, and her great­est achieve­ment is a pre­co­cious tod­dler named Sagan. Megan enjoys nature, music, video games, and sit­ting on the patio before sun­rise, sip­ping cof­fee, play­ing with her wide-awake son while the rest of the world con­tin­ues to sleep. Her cur­rent research inter­ests include fam­i­lies’ roles in stu­dent men­tal health, the effects of social/cultural beliefs on behavior/mental health, and strate­gies to increase learn­ing and adap­ta­tion of proso­cial beliefs/behaviors in schools. Megan is hon­ored to be part of the MPSI team, and she looks for­ward to grow­ing as a researcher and prac­ti­tion­er dur­ing her time with the insti­tute.

Colleen Eddy (Coun­sel­ing Psy­chol­o­gy)

Colleen is a fifth-year doc­tor­al stu­dent in the Coun­sel­ing Psy­chol­o­gy pro­gram. She attend­ed the Uni­ver­si­ty of Pitts­burgh for under­grad­u­ate stud­ies and then Boston Col­lege for a mas­ter’s degree in Men­tal Health Coun­sel­ing. Most recent­ly she worked for the VA health­care sys­tem in North Lit­tle Rock, Arkansas. She is excit­ed to learn more about pre­ven­tion sci­ence dur­ing her time at Miz­zou.

Aman­da Hood (Social Work) 

Aman­da is a is a first year MSW/PhD stu­dent at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mis­souri. She received her bachelor’s degree in Psy­chol­o­gy from Wichi­ta State Uni­ver­si­ty. Cur­rent­ly she is fin­ish­ing up her Master’s degree in psy­cho­log­i­cal sci­ence with a devel­op­men­tal empha­sis from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Col­orado, Col­orado Springs. She has pre­vi­ous­ly worked as a men­tal health tech­ni­cian with ado­les­cents, and as a Grad­u­ate Assis­tant col­lect­ing data from mid­dle schools in the Col­orado Springs area. Her research inter­ests include body image and its rela­tion to sex­u­al behav­iors includ­ing pro­tec­tive sex­u­al behav­iors and sex­u­al func­tion­ing. She is excit­ed to work with the MPSI and learn about research on inter­ven­tions in schools.

Anna Kim (Social Work)

Anna is a first-year doc­tor­al stu­dent in the com­bined MSW/PHD pro­gram at MU. She received her under­grad­u­ate degree in Soci­ol­o­gy at Pur­due Uni­ver­si­ty and her master’s degree in Pub­lic Man­age­ment from Fudan Uni­ver­si­ty in Shang­hai, Chi­na. Anna has two years of expe­ri­ence work­ing at the non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion called, Beau­ti­ful Store, which is locat­ed in Seoul, S. Korea. Her research inter­ests are children’s health, well-being, and edu­ca­tion. She looks for­ward to work­ing with the MPSI team and gain valu­able research knowl­edge! 

Toby Mills (Social Work)

Toby is a third-year doc­tor­al stu­dent and a Licensed Clin­i­cal Social Work­er. She received her BA from Uni­ver­si­ty of Mis­souri, Colum­bia and her MSW from New Mex­i­co High­lands State Uni­ver­si­ty. Toby has sev­er­al years of expe­ri­ence pro­vid­ing men­tal health ser­vices to chil­dren and their fam­i­lies in a vari­ety of clin­i­cal set­tings. Her research inter­ests include: cre­at­ing trau­ma-informed edu­ca­tion­al pol­i­cy and yoga and mind­ful­ness-based, cog­ni­tive-behav­ioral group inter­ven­tions to help stu­dents cope with stress and trau­ma. Toby is excit­ed to join the MPSI team and gain valu­able expe­ri­ence con­duct­ing inter­ven­tion research in the school set­ting.

Madi­son Schoen (School Psy­chol­o­gy)

Madi­son is a sec­ond-year doc­tor­al stu­dent in School Psy­chol­o­gy at MU. She received her under­grad­u­ate degree from South­ern Illi­nois Uni­ver­si­ty Edwardsville, dou­ble major­ing in Psy­chol­o­gy and Crim­i­nal Jus­tice. She con­tin­ued her edu­ca­tion at SIUE and received a Mas­ters degree in Clin­i­cal Child Psy­chol­o­gy. Dur­ing her Mas­ters pro­gram, she gained expe­ri­ence in imple­ment­ing indi­vid­ual and group inter­ven­tions with­in mul­ti­ple Madi­son Coun­ty Head Starts. She looks for­ward to con­tin­u­ing her edu­ca­tion on evi­dence-based inter­ven­tions while work­ing with the MPSI team!

Wenxi Yang (School Psy­chol­o­gy)

Wenxi is a first-year doc­tor­al stu­dent in School Psy­chol­o­gy. She received her bachelor’s degree in Busi­ness Man­age­ment from Mis­souri State Uni­ver­si­ty with a minor in Psy­chol­o­gy, and her Mas­ter of Sci­ence degree in Psy­chol­o­gy from Ari­zona State Uni­ver­si­ty (ASU). Dur­ing her master’s pro­gram, she worked at the Sta­tis­tics and Meth­ods Lab of ASU for two years. In addi­tion, she has devel­oped a strong inter­est in (a) social-emo­tion­al devel­op­ment in chil­dren, and how stress and resilience influ­ence those process­es; (b) how per­son­al­i­ty traits and inter­per­son­al beliefs (e.g., cul­ture, atti­tudes) inter­act with exter­nal envi­ron­ments (e.g., school, fam­i­ly) in affect­ing adjust­ment out­comes; and © how to apply these pre­vi­ous research inter­ests to estab­lish effec­tive inter­ven­tions and pre­ven­tions. She looks for­ward to learn­ing more about pre­ven­tion sci­ence and fun sta­tis­tics!

 Updat­ed Novem­ber 2019