2025 Strumpf Scholar Award Recipients Announced
The Strumpf Scholar Award, provided by the Linda Brodsky Strumpf Liberal Arts Centennial Graduate Endowment, recognizes outstanding achievement and promise in areas of research supported by the Child Study Center. Students who receive the Strumpf Scholar Award show innovation and promise in their own research, often have multiple lines of research, and have begun the process of sharing this work with the child psychology research community via presentations and often publications. Selected graduate students are provided with two years of funding for summer support, as well as additional funds for research-related costs.
We are pleased to announce the 2025 Strumpf Scholars: Maddie Politte-Corn, a Developmental Psychology graduate student, Hunter Mattern, a Developmental Psychology graduate student, and Xu (Elsie) Yan, a Child Clinical Psychology graduate student.
Maddie’s research focuses on the early detection and prevention of adolescent anxiety and depression. Her primary mentor is Kristin Buss, Ph.D. Maddie graduated from Cornell College with a degree in psychology summa cum laude, and a minor in applied statistics. Her master’s degree is in clinical and developmental research from Vanderbilt University. At Penn State, her research has examined socio-contextual influences on the association between behaviorally inhibited temperament and social anxiety symptomatology in adolescence. As part of a NIH-funded TL1 training grant, Maddie completed a training fellowship in translational science where she focused on identifying neurophysiological markers of social threat sensitivity and their relation to social anxiety and depressive symptoms in adolescents. She has been invited to present at national and international events and has five first-author publications. The Strumpf Scholar Award will allow Maddie the time and resources needed to support her academic pursuits, as well as allow for travel to receive additional training. The funds will also support furthering a research collaboration with Dr. Andreas Kiel at the University of Florida. The Strumpf Scholar Award will be pivotal to Maddie’s advancement and success as a translational developmental scientist.
Hunter is a fourth-year graduate student examining social information processing in autistic adolescents. Her mentor is Suzy Scherf, Ph.D. Hunter received a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience from the University of Mount Union and a master’s degree at Saint Joseph’s University in experimental psychology. At Penn State, Hunter has been the primary research assistant on a NIMH-funded project conducting randomized clinical trials with autistic adolescents investigating the effectiveness of a serious game intervention to improve sensitivity to eye gaze cues. She presented initial effectiveness findings from this work at the annual meeting of the Vision Sciences Society in May of 2024. She has also been investigating the importance of including autistic adolescent perspectives in adolescent research. To increase her knowledge of qualitative and community-informed research methods, Hunter works with Dr. Witherspoon in the Context and Development Lab. The Strumpf Scholar Award will support Hunter’s dissertation work by funding participant recruitment and data collection, allowing time to focus on research and manuscript writing, and the ability to travel to an international conference to share her findings. Hunter looks forward to a lifelong research career focused on improving our understanding of autism and enhancing the social lives of autistic youths.
Elsie’s primary mentor is Cynthia Huang-Pollock, Ph.D. and her research focuses on understanding how individual differences in cognition and affective processes contribute to maladaptive behaviors. Elsie received her bachelor’s degree in honors psychology with a minor in statistics from McGill University and her master’s degree in clinical psychology at Penn State. As a graduate student, Elsie’s was awarded a two-year training fellowship in the T32 Prevention and Methodology Training Program funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and housed within the Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center. Recently, Elsie’s work has focused on a multi-method examination of attentional control deficits across substance use problems and psychopathologies. Her dissertation will examine the neurocognitive mechanisms of attention difficulties in adolescent depression and anxiety. The Strumpf Scholar Award will provide Elsie with dedicated research time, the ability to travel to conferences, as well as gain exposure to cutting-edge methodologies. She plans to collaborate with Dr. Alexander Weigard, a 2015 Strumpf Scholar recipient, who is an expert in advanced modeling and neuroimaging. Elsie’s long-term goal is to develop into an independent clinical scientist, improving intervention effectiveness for mental health conditions.
Please join us in congratulating Maddie, Hunter, and Elsie!
