Katherine All

Kat All (she/they) is a third-year graduate student in the Child Clinical program at Penn State. Kat attended the University of Pennsylvania, where she received a bachelor’s degree in psychology and minor in Hispanic studies in 2021. As an undergraduate student, she worked in multiple research labs, beginning with studies of math learning in children and anxiety and depression in adults. Integrating her growing interests in working with children and understanding psychological disorders, Kat pursued further research experience studying risk for psychopathology in children. Her undergraduate honors thesis examined how children differ in prosocial behavior based on their callous-unemotional traits, such as lack of empathy or remorse. Kat completed a post-baccalaureate research position at the Yale Child Study Center, where she worked on projects related to autism assessment and the prediction of externalizing behaviors, such as hyperactivity and aggression, in autistic youth.

Through these experiences, Kat learned that she most enjoys working with children who struggle with attention and hyperactivity problems. As such, Kat was drawn to Dr. Cynthia Huang-Pollock’s work at Penn State on ADHD development, as well as Penn State’s renowned clinical and research training. Currently, Kat is interested in precision clinical care, which so far has involved how to improve the assessment of pediatric psychopathology. For example, her master’s thesis examined how measuring children’s personality traits, such as positive affectivity, alongside traditional measures of psychopathology can improve the prediction of depression. Building on this work, her comprehensive exam will investigate differences in how parents versus teachers perceive children’s psychopathology, and how those differences are driven by children’s working memory and academic achievement. She is also interested in improving the assessment of therapeutic interventions by examining how these therapies come into play in the daily lives of parents and children.

In the future, Kat is broadly interested in improving and delivering clinical care by advancing assessment, training future clinicians, and expanding upon how clinical care is delivered to children and families.