People

Catherine Tamis-LeMonda

Professor of Applied Psychology
Faculty Page | Curriculum Vitae
Email: catherine.tamis-lemonda@nyu.edu

Karen Adolph

Professor of Psychology, Applied Psychology, and Neuroscience
Principal Investigator of Infant Action Lab
Faculty Page | Curriculum Vitae
Email: karen.adolph@nyu.edu

Catalina Suarez-Rivera

Postdoctoral Fellow

Email: cs6109@nyu.edu

Catalina obtained her PhD in Psychology from Indiana University and she joined the lab as a Postdoctoral Fellow in Fall 2019. Catalina investigates infant-caregiver naturalistic interactions moment-to-moment to uncover the real-time behaviors and mechanisms that build infant language and self-regulation day-in and day-out. Her research implements innovative behavioral coding of Spanish- and English-speaking families including interpersonal proximity, infant everyday words and meanings, joint engagement, complexity of infant play, and activity contexts. Catalina is expert in and teaches courses on statistics and sequential analyses on data in real-time at the level of individual events (e.g., bouts of infant play), including generalized mixed models and network analyses.

Joshua Schneider

Postdoctoral Fellow

Curriculum Vitae | Email: jls863@nyu.edu

Joshua Schneider received his PhD from the University of Pittsburgh under the mentorship of Dr. Jana Iverson. Currently, he is a postdoctoral fellow working with Drs. Karen Adolph and Catherine Tamis-LeMonda. His research program focuses on the study of developmental cascades in context by examining the bidirectional pathways that link advances in infant motor development to alterations in caregiver behavior. At NYU, Dr. Schneider investigates the social processes that shape infants’ expanding access the environment—how infants’ developing skills enable them to explore new objects, places, and spaces; and in turn, how caregivers support this process. He was awarded an NSF SBE Postdoctoral Research Fellowship to fund his postdoctoral work.

Orit Herzberg

Postdoctoral Fellow

Email: ohk2@nyu.edu

Orit Herzberg is a postdoctoral fellow with Drs. Karen Adolph and Catherine Tamis-LeMonda. She received her Physical Therapy Degree (2007) in the Department of Kinesiology, Mayor University, Santiago, Chile; her Masters (2015) in Motor Learning and Control in the Department of Biobehavioral Sciences, Teachers College, Columbia University; and her DPT (2017) from the Department of Physical Therapy, Rocky Mountain University of Health Professions. Her research focuses on the development of object manipulation and locomotion in infants’ everyday life. She is currently leading the PLAY project.

Huanhuan Shi

Postdoctoral Fellow

Curriculum Vitae | Email: hs3035@nyu.edu

Huanhuan is a postdoctoral researcher in the Play and Language Lab. She received her Ph.D. in Communicative Sciences and Disorders from New York University in 2024. She studies how children learn words, focusing on the role of language input, parent–child interaction, and linguistic factors in supporting vocabulary development in both typically developing children and those with language disorders.

Kristy Lai

PhD Candidate

Email: khl393@nyu.edu

Kristy Lai (she/her) is a doctoral student and IES-PIRT fellow in the Developmental Psychology program working with Professor Catherine Tamis-LeMonda. Kristy broadly explores how young children across various sociocultural contexts learn language in the first few years of life. Specifically, she is interested in understanding the dynamics of everyday caregiver-child interactions and language learning among dual language learners. Prior to attending NYU, she worked as a researcher at WestEd, where she supported local and state projects in California on improving programs and policies for children, youth, and their families. Kristy received her B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Education from UC Berkeley.

Melody Luo

PhD Candidate

Email: ml9536@nyu.edu

Melody is a doctoral student in the Developmental Psychology program working with Dr. Catherine Tamis-LeMonda. Melody completed her undergraduate studies at the University of California, Davis, where she earned B.S. degrees in Psychology and Human Development. Motivated by a strong interest in Developmental Psychology, Melody pursued an M.A. degree at Cornell University. Her current research interests center around the bidirectional dynamics of caregiver-infant interactions and their influence on developmental outcomes in social, language, and cognitive domains. She is particularly interested in exploring the nuanced aspects within the interactions through naturalistic observations and across diverse cultural and linguistic contexts.

Shanttell Fernandez

Research Staff

Email: sf4064@nyu.edu

Shanttell Fernandez is a Lab Manager at the Play and Language Lab. She received her BA in Cognitive Psychology from Hunter College in 2024. She is interested in the early language and mathematical development of infants and toddlers through their everyday interactions. She is particularly interested in the cultural and contextual factors within bilingual families.

Sarah Riley

Research Staff

Email: sr6212@nyu.edu

Sarah Riley is a Project Coordinator at the Play & Language Lab where she manages research activities and oversees lab operations. She earned her B.S. in Psychology from Florida State University and her M.A. in Psychology from New York University. Her research interests focus on children’s mathematical and language development, specifically how these skills are shaped by early experiences with caregivers at home.

Lillian Masek

Email: lrm8906@nyu.edu

Lillian Masek is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Southern Illinois University. She received her PhD in Psychology from Temple University working with Dr. Kathy Hirsh-Pasek. She joined the lab as a postdoctoral researcher in Fall 2021. Her research broadly examines how interactions with caregivers account for individual differences in infant language development and learning. At the Play and Learning Lab, Lillian expanded her research to investigate caregiver-infant interactions in the home and how aspects of the environment shape these interactions.

Mackenzie Swirbul

Email: mss9219@nyu.edu

Mackenzie Swirbul was a doctoral student in the Developmental Psychology program working with Dr. Catherine Tamis-LeMonda. She is primarily interested in infant/toddler language (including early math and spatial language) and everyday play, and she is particularly interested in conducting research that informs on these domains for children and families in the context of poverty. Before arriving at NYU, Mackenzie worked at the Robin Hood Foundation as a senior program officer, funding and partnering with community-based organizations serving young children and families experiencing poverty in New York City.

Allie Mendelsohn

Email: am5236@nyu.edu

Allie Mendelsohn was a Project Coordinator for the Play & Language Lab, where she oversaw research activities and lab management. She studied how parents support children’s math and language skills during daily routines and how interventions can leverage those routines to empower families. She graduated from Princeton University in 2018.

Jacob Schatz

Email: schatz@nyu.edu

Jacob Schatz was a doctoral student with Dr. Catherine Tamis-LeMonda. He primarily investigated how parents and infants interact during everyday activities. Before NYU, Jacob worked in the Temple Infant and Child Lab with Dr. Kathryn Hirsh-Pasek. His research focuses on identifying optimal parent-child interactions and how stressful experiences influence them.

Brianna Kaplan

Email: bk1820@nyu.edu

Brianna Kaplan is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin. She was a doctoral student in the Cognition and Perception Program with Drs. Karen Adolph and Catherine Tamis-LeMonda. She studies how children learn from others and integrate that with their motor development.

Daniel Suh

Email: dan.suh@nyu.edu

Daniel Suh graduated with his doctoral degree in 2021 from the Developmental Psychology Program at NYU Steinhardt. His research focuses on how children’s social interactions with parents and their physical environment affect the development of early math and spatial skills. He collaborates with NYU, Cornell, University of Maryland, and University of Pittsburgh on culturally diverse early STEM development studies.

Jennifer Rachwani

Email: jrp516@nyu.edu

Jennifer Rachwani was a postdoctoral fellow with Drs. Karen Adolph and Catherine Tamis-LeMonda. Her research focuses on postural control and coordination of visual and manual actions. She is joining the faculty at Hunter College in the Department of Physical Therapy.

Kelly Escobar

Email: kelly.escobar@nyu.edu

Kelly Escobar was a doctoral candidate in the Developmental Psychology program. Her research focuses on language development in dual-language learning populations, particularly Latino children from immigrant families. She is currently a Postdoctoral Associate at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Rufan Luo

Email: rufan.luo@rutgers.edu

Dr. Rufan Luo is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Rutgers University-Camden. Her work examines how children’s home and classroom learning experiences impact language and school readiness outcomes, as well as caregiver-implemented language interventions.

Yana Kuchirko

Email: yana.kuchirko@nyu.edu

Yana Kuchirko is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Brooklyn College, CUNY, and directs the Culture and Child Development Lab. She studies the role of culture and context in child development.