Mekhi Cannedy (’26)

Mekhi Cannedy (he/him) is a Penn State senior and McNair Scholar majoring in Psychology. Mekhi was drawn to research because he wanted to understand protective factors among youth exposed to contextual stressors, such as parenting or socioeconomic status. To pursue this interest, he joined Dr. Dawn Witherspoon’s Context and Development Lab, which focuses on how various settings, including the family, school, and neighborhood, influence adolescents’ academic and behavioral development as well as psychological health.

As an undergraduate research assistant, Mekhi has assisted with community-engaged dissemination efforts, including the creation and design of newsletters and lay science communications with research participants. In addition, Mekhi has conducted numerous literature searches related to parenting among Black families, Black caregivers and youth mental health, identity development, and culture-related socialization practices, which support ongoing research projects in the lab. In addition to assisting with lab projects and tasks, Mekhi led an independent research project focused on understanding how the mental health of Black female caregivers impacts their adolescents’ mental health, specifically focusing on whether parental warmth and relationship quality help to explain these associations. His findings indicated that female caregivers with higher depressive symptoms exhibit less parental warmth, which in turn predicts higher depressive symptoms in their children. Mekhi presented these findings at the 2025 McNair Scholars summer research conference and is now extending this work with longitudinal data which will consider gender differences and other contextual variables. He will present his research findings at the 2026 Society for Research on Adolescence biennial meeting in Toronto, Canada. In the lab, Mekhi now leads other undergraduate research assistants as they develop their own independent projects.

Following graduation, Mekhi hopes to gain more research experience through a post-baccalaureate lab manager position, with the goal of attaining a graduate degree in psychology and continuing his research on adolescent development and contextual stressors. Outside of research, Mekhi enjoys hanging out with friends, taking long walks, and writing short stories.

The CSC wishes Mekhi all the best in his future academic pursuits!