Center Faculty
Dr. Joni Williams Splett (Director)
Dr. Joni Williams Splett is an Associate Professor of School Psychology at the University of Florida. Her research aims to improve the social, emotional, and behavioral health outcomes of all school-aged children and youth through two lines of inquiry: (1) school-wide service delivery models of behavioral and mental health promotion, prevention, and intervention services; and (2) school-based interventions to reduce student aggression and increase prosocial responses. Dr. Splett’s work emphasizes equitable outcomes for children, youth, and families from marginalized and vulnerable backgrounds and seeks practice and policy solutions to health disparities in the school setting.
Email: splett@ufl.edu
Dr. Kathrin Maki (Faculty Affiliate)
Kathrin E. Maki, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of School Psychology at the University of Florida. She is interested in promoting academic skill development through prevention and intervention efforts within multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS). Her work includes two interwoven lines of research to examine (1) data-based decision making to develop, implement, and modify academic interventions and (2) the identification of specific learning disabilities in school settings. She uses an ecological perspective to identify factors influencing student academic skill development, to prevent academic difficulties, and to promote academic skill proficiency. Through prevention and promotion efforts, Dr. Maki’s work seeks to ensure all students receive appropriate academic supports in schools.
Email: kathrin.maki@coe.ufl.edu
Christopher J. Anthony is an Associate Professor of School Psychology at the University of Florida. He is interested in promoting comprehensive student social, emotional, and academic success. He focuses on two particular areas of students competence: social and emotional skills (e.g., relationship skills, self-awareness) and academic enablers (e.g., motivation, study skills, classroom engagement). He especially focuses on using advanced methodology to develop more efficient, technically sound assessments of these competencies. He has been a lead author on several assessments used to promote student success across the country and for research across the world. He also utilized sophisticated statistical techniques to examine how these factors can be promoted and improved in schools. Through these avenues, Dr. Anthony hopes to foster students’ comprehensive success in schools and beyond.
Email: canthony@coe.ufl.edu
Dr. Cathy Corbin (Faculty Affiliate)
Dr. Catherine M. Corbin (she/they) is an Assistant Research Professor at the University of Florida. Their research aims to promote teachers’ and students’ social-emotional development and well-being by understanding and enhancing: (1) student-teacher relationships, (2) teachers’ occupational health and well-being, and (3) the effective implementation of Tier 1 (i.e., universal, delivered to all students) social, emotional, and behavioral programs. These interrelated lines of inquiry are progressed using advanced quantitative methodology, with a particular emphasis on developing school-based implementation-related measures for research and practice. Dr. Corbin’s work centers equity and inclusivity to ensure all students and teachers have access to the skills and opportunities that will facilitate their school and life success.
Email: cm.corbin@coe.ufl.edu
Preferred Name: Cathy
Dr. Sarah Lynne (Faculty Affiliate)
Sarah D. Lynne is an Associate Professor in the Department of Family, Youth and Community Sciences at the University of Florida. A primary goal of her research is to promote positive health and well-being and reduce disparities for marginalized populations using the tools of developmental psychology and prevention science. Applying advanced quantitative statistical methods, Dr. Lynne conducts developmental research on pathways to substance use and related mental, physical, and behavioral health problems complimenting original data collection with evaluations of large archival longitudinal datasets. She takes an ecological perspective, focusing on the interplay between individual characteristics, interpersonal relationships, and context across childhood and adolescence, with primary expertise in the biopsychosocial changes of adolescence.
Email: sarahlynne@ufl.edu
Dr. Joy Gabrielli (Faculty Affiliate)
Dr. Joy Gabrielli is a clinical child psychologist and assistant professor in the Clinical and Health Psychology Department. She obtained her PhD from the University of Kansas Clinical Child Psychology Program and did postdoctoral research training through the Center for Technology and Behavioral Health at Dartmouth College. She has clinical and research interests in prevention of health risk behavior in adolescents and is currently working on parental media literacy as a means to prevent substance use in youth. Dr. Gabrielli also has interests in work with underserved, under-researched populations (e.g., youth in foster care), and she has examined early life adversity as a predictor of risk trajectories in youth.
Email: jgabrielli@ufl.edu
Center Trainees & Staff
Dr. Melanie Sonsteng-Person, MSW (Postdoctoral Fellow)
Melanie Sonsteng-Person completed her Ph.D. in Social Welfare at UCLA and is currently a Postdoctoral Associate in the College of Education at the University of Florida. Her work centers a liberatory praxis that connects her research, teaching, and activism as she works with various collectives to dismantle institutional trauma. Melanie bridges participatory action research with mixed methods to inform policies and practices that address institutional conditions that produce and maintain racism, violence, and trauma throughout education and social work institutions. Her work is informed by her experience as a middle school teacher at a zero-tolerance charter school in Brooklyn and as a certified trauma practitioner for children exposed to violence-related trauma in Detroit.
Email: m.sonsteng-person@ufl.edu
Dr. Tara Counts (Research Manager)
Tara Counts earned a Ph.D. in Youth Development and Family Sciences from the University of Florida prior to joining the PIN Center. She brings over a decade of experience in youth development, event management, and nonprofit administration to the team. Tara’s program of research focuses on youth-in-context, specifically examining pathways to healthy developmental adjustment for youth with a focus on out-of-school time programs and youth sport. She is particularly interested in understanding variation in adjustment among youth “at risk”, including the identification of important influences on adaptation with the goal of informing prevention programs and promoting evidence-based strategies for improving youth outcomes and promoting resilience.
Email: taracounts@ufl.edu
Dr. Katie Trainor (Gator Connect Program Manager)
Dr. Katie Trainor is a licensed psychologist and nationally certified school psychologist, and serves as the program manager and graduate supervisor for the Gator Connect program. After graduating with her PhD from the UF School Psychology program, she completed her Post-doctoral research fellowship at the University of Maryland School of Medicine’s National Center for School Mental Health. Kaite has spent the past decade working in schools as a teacher, researcher and clinician and is passionate about increasing access to culturally responsive, evidence-based mental health care for youth and families. As a former teacher, Katie brings her school-based expertise to champion teachers and staff to support their students’ and their personal well-being through education, consultation, and systems-change.
Email: ktrainor@coe.ufl.edu
Graduate Assistants & Fellows
Zoë Alfonso
Zoë is a doctoral student in the school psychology program and is interested in early childhood research related to assessment, developmental challenges, and early intervention and prevention
Kira Alqueza
Kira is a student in the school psychology doctoral program whose research primarily focuses on adolescent suicide. Specific areas of interest within this domain include how schools assess suicide risk, the school re-entry process following psychiatric hospitalization, and how youth make meaning of their own suicidal thoughts and behaviors.
Robretta Campbell
Robretta Campbell is a PhD student School Psychology student at the University of Florida. Her research aims to investigate the potential correlation between mental health challenges among marginalized youth and their involvement in disciplinary referrals, gun violence incidents, and juvenile detention.
Miranda Highman
Miranda Higham is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Education studying school psychology at the University of Florida. Her primary research interests include increasing equitable mental health identification in schools and improving access to mental health services to historically underserved populations.
Brandi Hilliard
Brandi is a PhD student in the School Psychology program. Her research interests relate to improving educational equity and educational outcomes for minority students. Specifically, she is interested in understanding the educational and mental health experiences of minority youth, reforming school disciplinary policies to address disparities in school discipline and implementing culturally competent mental health services.
Jessica Kidd
Jessica is in the school psychology doctoral program, she is interested in school mental health, discipline, and threat assessment practices. In particular, she is concerned with how these topics intersect with racial equity and the exclusion of youth of color from general education.
Reilly Lord
Reilly is a School Psychology PhD student. Broadly, her research interests include improving students’ behavioral and mental health outcomes through systems level work. Specifically, she is interested in studying family engagement within Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS)”.
Tatianna Zambrano
Tatianna is a PhD student in School Psychology. Her research interests include Autism Assessment, Systems Wide interventions, and District Mental Health practices.