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Emily Ellis (’19)

Emily Ellis (’19)

Undergraduate Spotlight
Headshot of Emily Ellis

I would like to continue investigating the influence of genetics and the environment on the development of children.

Emily Ellis is a Penn State senior psychology major graduating in Spring 2019. She began her undergraduate career interested in biology and spent some time working in a lab focused on studying genetic influences with flies. While Emily had an interest in genetics, she also wanted to learn more about clinical disorders and psychopathology. These interests led Emily to join Dr. Michelle Newman’s lab in 2017, during the fall of her junior year. In the Laboratory for Anxiety Research, Emily had the opportunity to learn more about clinical mood disorders and their symptomology and she helped run adult participants for studies. During the spring of her junior year, Emily joined Dr. Jenae Neiderheiser’s research team. As a part of this team, Emily worked on the Early Growth and Development Study (EGDS), a large, longitudinal adoption study. She helped with cleaning coded video data and data management. Emily really enjoyed the opportunity to gain more research experience with child populations and to learn more about the topic of gene-environment interplay and the development of children.

After graduation, Emily plans to pursue a position as a research coordinator or a clinical position. She hopes to gain more experience with clinical populations in order to later apply to graduate programs in child clinical psychology. She would like to continue investigating the influence of genetics and the environment on the development of children.

We wish Emily the best as she continues her academic pursuits!