CAT Lab Researcher Awarded Prestigious National Fellowship

Congratulations to Kelley Gunther who was awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship (GRF)! Only 17% of applicants receive this competitive national grant.

Kelley is a second-year student in the developmental psychology program. She is interested in understanding how inhibitory control may function as a protective or risk factor for the development of anxiety. To answer her research questions, Kelley uses mobile eye-tracking (MET) technology to examine how children attend to their naturalistic social environment. This novel technique allows her to ask questions that have traditionally only be measured via computer tasks, allowing her to consider how inhibitory control may function in the "real world."

The NSF GRF will provide Kelley with funding to continue this line of research as well as to expand into additional methods for assessing naturalistic inhibitory control in young children at risk for anxiety.