Overview
Established in 1946, the American Institutes for Research (AIR) is one of the world s largest behavioral and social science research and evaluation organizations. Our mission is to generate and use rigorous evidence that contributes to a better, more equitable world. AIR works with federal, state, and local government agencies, philanthropies and other organizations to conduct research and evaluation and provide technical assistance in the areas of education, health and workforce development, in the U.S. and abroad.
AIR’s International Development Division (IDD) strives to improve the quality of life in developing countries by using rigorous research and evaluation to enhance education and social development. We work across a wide range of topics including workforce development, agriculture/food/nutrition, early childhood development, education, refugees and migration, social protection, water/sanitation/infrastructure, and women s empowerment in Africa, Asia, the Caribb
Francesca Belouad, MA, is a Research Psychologist in GEB-SDGE. She is responsible for administrating interviews and overseeing clinical aspects of the NIMH Family Study. Francesca has been employed as a Research Psychologist at the NIMH since 2000, when she was recruited by Dennis Charney, MD, during the formation of the Mood and Anxiety Disorders Research Program. Prior to this, she held research positions at the Section on Development Psychology at the NIMH, Outpatient Psychiatry at the Washington Veterans Medical Center, and the Department of Medical and Clinical Psychology at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.
Francesca s work has focused on the writing and submission of the original NIMH Family Study protocol and the development and selection of research measures. She currently administers headache, psychiatric, sleep, and family history interviews to adults and children at initial and follow-up time points. She conducts reviews of clinical assessments a
Shahriar SheikhBahaei, Ph.D.
Dr. SheikhBahaei’s interest in neuroscience stemmed from the usual combination of an aptitude for science and a medical problem (stuttering) that brought him into bioscience at a young age. Dr. SheikhBahaei received his bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Berkeley, where he worked with Dr. Bob Zucker on the regulation of neurotransmitter release and Dr. John Rubenstein (UC San Francisco) on development of GABAergic neurons in basal ganglia. Dr. SheikhBahaei completed his doctoral studies in Neuroscience (2017) jointly under NIMH/NINDS – University College London (UCL) Graduate Partnership Program where he worked with Drs. Jeffrey Smith (NINDS) and Alexander Gourine (UCL). His graduate studies were on how astrocytic networks control activities of respiratory motor circuits within the brainstem. After short postdoctoral research at NINDS, Dr. SheikhBahaei became an Independent Research Scholar in 2019. In collaboration with the lab
A clinical science approach to psychology Article by Beth Miller Photo by Kathy F. Atkinson April 30, 2021
UD doctoral student puts power of data to work
Editorâs note: This article appears in the new, all-digital issue of the University of Delaware Research magazine. This issue spotlights UDâs graduate students, an essential group of researchers who come from around the world, bringing fresh energy and new perspectives to their studies. It includes a special section on UDâs growing muscle in robotics and also reports on COVID-19 research with impact in Delaware, the nation and the world.
Alexandra âLexieâ Tabachnick wasnât looking for a path to research when she was scouting around for a doctoral program in psychology. She wanted to be a clinician doing practical, hands-on stuff. Then she met with Mary Dozier, Amy Elizabeth du Pont Chair of Developmental Psychology at the University of Delawar
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Babies learn the difference between us and them fairly early in life. Social categorization the process of dividing the world into groups based on features such as gender, race and nationality can be a useful strategy when you re new to the world and trying to process a flood of information with your developing brain, according to UC Santa Barbara developmental, evolutionary and social psychologist Zoe Liberman.
The act of creating groups for instance, all the objects that can be categorized as some type of chair serves as an efficient learning tool for minds still learning to grasp the world around them. But what starts out as a useful survival behavior in our early lives could become a problem when it is applied to people: The tendency to form groups and to like people who are more familiar can lead to stereotyping, bias and racism.