天美传媒

Dr. Vanessa Rainey, associate professor, teaches developmental psychology, human development across the lifespan, and research methods.

Rainey is a developmental psychologist who is interested in understanding how cognitive control impacts development across a person's lifespan.

Specifically, she is examining the impact executive function (brain basis of self-control) has on various populations and neuroplasticity (ability of the brain to rewire itself) throughout the lifespan. She has written several journal articles on the connection between executive functions and aspects of language development. 

Her current work expands on previous research she conducted with researchers at Loyola University Chicago. They evaluated the differential development of bilingual children who serve as the primary language translator for their family, also known as a language broker. Rainey is the lead author of a chapter that addresses cognitive, socioemotional, and developmental neuroscience perspectives on language brokering, which will be published in the book "Language Brokering in Immigrant Families: Theories and Contexts."

Before coming to UWF in 2014, she taught several psychology courses at Loyola University Chicago.

She received a bachelor鈥檚 in psychology, and a master鈥檚 and doctorate in developmental psychology and statistics from Loyola University Chicago. She also conducted post-doctoral research on executive function development using neuroscience methodologies at Loyola University Chicago鈥檚 Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Lab.

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Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Illinois, Dr. McElwain received a National Institute of Child Health and Human Development postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for Developmental Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Her research focuses on social and emotional development during the first five years of life. In particular, Dr. McElwain investigates the dynamic early-life interactions between parents and children that shape children’s developing abilities to regulate stress. She adopts an interdisciplinary approach that combines neuroscience, psychophysiology, linguistics, and developmental psychology.
Dr. McElwain teaches courses on behavioral research methods and social-emotional development, and she currently serves on the Editorial Board of the American Psychologist.
Lab website:  
Research Interests:


Physiological and neural correlates of infant-mother attachment


Emotion-related dynamics of parent-child interactions


Maternal speech prosody and children's stress regulation


Parental socialization of emotion


Family-friend linkages and children's social-emotional competence


Education


Ph.D., psychology, University of Michigan, 1999