Dr. Gartstein’s research addresses temperament development, primarily in early childhood. The emphasis on identifying typical trajectories of growth for reactive and regulatory tendencies is coupled with efforts to discern risk and protective factors relevant to the emergence of psychopathology. Dr. Gartstein has examined a spectrum of environmental factors contributing to temperament attributes “coming online”, including parental temperament, parenting/parent-child interactions, and cultural influences. More recently, her work has focused on biological underpinnings of temperament, examining prenatal effects and postnatal physiological correlates. Current studies are addressing effects associated with maternal physiological and psychosocial stress during pregnancy, including epigenetic mechanisms. The Gartstein laboratory has also been collecting infant electroencephalogram (EEG) data reflecting brain activity associated with reactive and regulatory aspects of temperament. Another project wherein genomic parameters of infant microbiome are identified and linked with temperament attributes is currently underway. This research is conducted in collaboration with several WSU laboratories, as well as multiple domestic and international partners. As of Spring of 2025, Dr. Gartstein has taken a position at Baylor University, the lab in Pullman is still going strong!

I am a sixth-year student in the Clinical Psychology PhD program at Washington State University. I graduated from UC San Diego in 2017 with a B.S. in Cognitive Science specializing in Neuroscience and a minor in Business. After graduating, I worked as a study coordinator at the UC San Diego Autism Center of Excellence for two years, then as a study coordinator at the UC Irvine Thrive Lab for one year. I joined the Infant Temperament Lab in fall 2020 and am particularly interested in examining differences in the expression of temperament cross-culturally and how these differences influence developmental trajectories. I am also interested in examining intergenerational transmission of risk and resilience through parent-child interactions and how such interactions influence the development of temperament. In the future, I hope to apply my research in informing/improving family-focused interventions as I work as a professor and researcher. Christie is currently completing her pre-doctoral internship at the University of Washington School of Medicin.

I am a sixth-year student in the Clinical Psychology PhD program at Washington State University. I graduated from East Tennessee State University in May 2020 with a B.S in psychology and a minor in sociology, and I started working in the Infant Temperament Lab in fall 2020. My research interests include parenting stress, adverse childhood experiences, temperament, and parent-child interactions. I am also interested in exploring how stress, emotions, and behavior differ for various types of caregivers (e.g., heterosexual parents vs LGBTQ+ parents, grandparents vs parents). I hope to apply my research experience in the future and pursue a career as a child psychologist. Victoria is currently completing her pre-doctoral internship at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center.

I am a fifth-year clinical psychology graduate student and graduated from Florida State University in 2018 with a B.S. in Psychology and Family and Child Sciences. After graduating, I worked as a lab manager at FSU in the Risk for Anxiety and Depression Lab. My research interests include the relationships between stress, hormones, and neural measures during the perinatal period. Specifically, I am interested in exploring neurophysiological risk factors and biomarkers for postpartum mood disorders. I hope to expand these interests with the Infant Temperament Lab by exploring infant and maternal interactions and their impact on infant developmental trajectories.

I am a third-year graduate student in the WSU Clinical Psychology doctoral student, and I graduated from WSU in 2019 with a B.S. in Psychology. I have been working with the Infant Temperament Lab since April 2017. My research interests include emotional regulation, rural mental health, cross-cultural differences in temperament, and parent-child interactions.​ Long-term, I plan to work in a pediatric medical setting with a mix of inpatient and outpatient work while continuing to pursue research.

I was a second-year graduate student in WSU’s Clinical Psychology PhD program, and am currently a first-year graduate student at Baylor University’s Clinical Psychology PsyD program. I graduated from Texas A&M University in 2023 with a B.A. in Psychology. My research interests include parental factors that promote healthy emotional development and cross cultural differences in parenting. When I am not in the lab, I enjoy playing guitar, going to the gym, cheering on the Aggies and Yankees, and taking my dog Canela on walks.

Marwa is a doctoral candidate in WSU’s Violand School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering program and the vice president for WSU’s Graduate and Professional Students Association (GPSA). She is also a mom, which helps her fulfill an important role as community liaison, connecting our research team to other parents in the community.

Kara graduated from the Clinical Psychology PhD program at Washington State University in the Spring of 2025. She completed her pre-doctoral internship at the Wichita Collaborative Psychology, Kansas University Medical Center, Child Psychology Track. She’ll be working as a psot-doctoral fellow at St. Judes Children’s Research Hospital in their Pediatric Neuropsychology track. Kara joined the Gartstein Infant Temperament Lab in the fall of 2019, with her research interest mainly including the investigation of neurobiological underpinnings of temperament using electroencephalography (EEG) to better understand emotion regulation and its impact on development. She is also interested in the global neural developmental that takes place in the first year of life.

Ella graduated from the Clinical Psychology PhD program at Washington State University in the Spring of 2025. She completed her pre-doctoral internship at the Child and Adolescent Abuse Resource and Evaluation (CAARE) Center at UC Davis Children’s Hospital, and is staying there for the coming year as a post-doctoral fellow. Her research interests center on diversity considerations in clinical psychology (particularly with regard to treatment implications for racial and ethnic minority groups), public policy applications of clinical psychology, and cross-cultural parental psychology. Clinically, I am interested in working with both child and adult clients. I hope to focus on a career that integrates research with clinical practice and public policy.

Jen graduated from WSU’s Clinical Psychology Ph.D. program in the Spring of 2024. She completed her predoctoral internship at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Emory University where several of her rotations were associated with the Marcus Autism Center, one of the largest in the country. She is now completing a post-doctoral position at Boston Children’s Hospital Developmental Medicine Center. She joined the Infant Temperament Lab in 2018, and her work revolved around studying how stressors during pregnancy, such as depression and anxiety, relate to socio-emotional functioning in young children via biological mechanisms.

Allegra Campagna graduated from WSU’s Clinical Psychology doctoral program in 2023 and is a proud alum of the Temperament Lab. She completed her internship at Boston Children’s Hospital and is currently a clinical psychology fellow at Mayo Clinic. During graduate training, her research focused on parent-child relationships, parental stress, and cultural correlates of development. Her work in the Temperament Lab continues to inform her clinical practice and how she supports pediatric patients and their families.

Alyssa Neumann graduated from the Temperament Lab in 2020 and is a soon-to-be pediatric neuropsychologist at St. Luke’s Children’s Hospital in Boise, ID, after completing her two-year postdoctoral fellowship at the Mayo Clinic. While in the Temperament Lab, she focused on the earliest underpinnings of executive systems such as self-regulation—beginning in the perinatal period—which are commonly disrupted in neurodevelopmental and complex medical conditions. She continues to appreciate individual, dyad, family, and group/cultural characteristics that shape each patient’s unique circumstances. In her new role, she hopes to be involved in expanding rural access to neuropsychological assessment services through outreach clinics, inspired by her graduate school research on rural vs. urban contributors to infant and child development.

Eric Desmarais is a pediatric psychologist with Providence Medical Group and Sacred Heart Children’s Hospital, where he is one of two psychologists creating a pediatric psychology consultation-liaison service. His work regarding temperament and cross-cultural differences serves as the foundation of his patient- and family-centered approach to care. Eric credits his understanding of the broad spectrum of normative develop, and the importance of culturally competent care, to his work with the diverse participants with whom he worked during his time with the Infant Temperament Lab.

Nora Erickson is a clinical child psychologist and Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Clinical Behavioral Neuroscience at the University of Minnesota Medical School. She works in the Birth to Three and Early Childhood Mental Health Program.

Sydney Iverson is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist practicing in The Seattle Clinic; Clinical Instructor and Supervisor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Washington.