Our Team
Lab Director
Lee Raby, Ph.D.
Dr. Lee Raby is the Director of the Early Experiences Lab and an Associate Professor of Developmental Psychology at the University of Utah. Dr. Raby’s research interests involve understanding the mechanisms by which early parent-child relationship experiences shape individuals’ functioning across the life-course. This research can help answer fascinating questions about the origins of individual differences in people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. In addition, these research findings can inform to promote healthy developmental outcomes among high-risk individuals. To learn more, please visit his faculty webpage.
Lab Manager
Ellie Barnett
Ellie is the lab manager of the Early Experiences lab and has participated in the lab in many capacities. Currently, Ellie is working on coding maternal behavior and attachment scripts, along with communicating with participants when their children reach 36 months of age. Ellie is pursuing a bachelor’s degree and is double-majoring in psychology and educational psychology, with a certificate in infant mental health. Ellie has a profound interest in mental health and the impact of adverse experiences on later development. Over the summer of 2025, Ellie worked as a Summer Program for Undergraduate Research scholar through the University of Utah. She researched the role of mothers’ experiences of childhood maltreatment on later mental health and parenting behavior. Ellie will continue to expand her knowledge on maltreatment and mental health, as she plans to become a mental health therapist in the future.
Graduate Students
Susan Chen
Susan is interested in why some children thrive, whereas others’ developmental trajectories go awry. Her research leverages developmental, evolutionary, and psychopathology perspectives to examine how early experiences “get under the skin” and influence behavior, cognition, and health during sensitive periods of development (including pregnancy, infancy, and adolescence). At the core of her work is an effort to understand how early experiences contribute to individual differences and the long-term calibration of stress response systems.
Jenn Isenhour
View Jenn's Curriculum Vitae
Jenn’s program of research focuses on the significance of early experiences for cognitive and neurobiological development. Through her research, she hopes to elucidate how environmental factors and parent-child relationships shape the development of stress response systems as well as executive function and other self- regulation skills.
Tracey Tacana
View Tracey's Curriculum Vitae
Tracey’s interdisciplinary research focuses on the long-term effects of adverse childhood experiences on social relationships and health throughout the lifespan. Currently, she is examining how childhood maltreatment contributes to behavioral outcomes in dyadic processes and how these can then influence cardiovascular functioning. This research can shed some light on potential avenues of intervention that promote supportive interpersonal relationships and physical health.
Undergraduate Scholars
Cam Buttin
Cam serves as the leader of the maternal behavioral coding team. In this role, she manages and supports a team of RAs, facilitates weekly meetings with the team, contributes to coding sessions, and oversees the timely completion of cases. Cam has completed two UROP projects in her undergraduate degree. Their first project examined the intergenerational effects of maternal prenatal anxiety on toddler socioemotional development. In addition to replicating established links between prenatal anxiety and child outcomes, it explored whether maternal parenting behaviors serve as a pathway through which anxiety influences toddlers' emotional and behavioral adjustment. The second UROP project expanded this work by investigating how maternal mental health more broadly shapes parenting practices and toddler socioemotional outcomes. This study applied dimensional models of psychopathology to assess symptoms and parenting behaviors across multiple levels of specificity, allowing for a more nuanced understanding of how these domains may interact. Cam is currently working on an honors thesis that will draw on the research from this second UROP.
Jen Lee
Jen is currently a third-year honors student majoring in Psychology with a minor in Korean Studies. Her work in the lab centers primarily on attachment, specifically focusing on how early childhood maltreatment impacts future psychiatric outcomes. In addition to that, Jen is passionate about broadening the demographic scope of psychological research to amplify diverse voices and aid minority communities.
Asia Rondoni
Asia is a senior in the honors program. She has worked on teams coding maternal transcription, along with assisting with the Electrical Medical Record Team (EMR). Asia is working on her honors thesis where she plans to examine whether mothers’ histories of childhood maltreatment are associated with changes in their emotion dysregulation and mental health during the transition from pregnancy to the first few years of the child’s life.
