Dr. Holley (Pitts) Arnold
Postdoctoral Fellow
Dr. Holley Pitts Arnold is a postdoctoral fellow. She completed her PhD in Experimental Psychology through the University of Louisville. Holley’s work broadly focuses on understanding the cognitive, language, and socioemotional development of children who have neurodevelopmental disorders such as fragile X syndrome, Williams syndrome, and duplication 7q11.23 syndrome. Her current research focuses on investigating how early indicators of physiological and behavioral development may impact children’s everyday living skills, social communication abilities, self-regulatory skills, and psychopathology. Holley is very excited about her position at the NDD Lab and looks forward to working with the children and their families who participate in our research!
For more detailed information regarding Dr. Holley Pitts Arnold’s research, you can review her ResearchGate profile.
Link to research gate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Holley-Arnold
Dr. Lisa Hamrick
Postdoctoral Fellow
Dr. Lisa Hamrick is a postdoctoral fellow. Lisa is excited to be returning to the NDD Lab, as she worked in the lab for two years as a research assistant prior to completing her PhD in Clinical Psychology at Purdue University under the mentorship of Bridgette Kelleher (another NDD Lab alum!). Lisa’s research focuses on early social communication and language development of children at increased likelihood of autism and neurodevelopmental conditions, including children with neurogenetic syndromes such as fragile X syndrome, Down syndrome, and Angelman syndrome. Lisa is passionate about developing and utilizing assessment methods that are strengths-based and which capture the full range of abilities of children with neurodevelopmental conditions. In her free time, Lisa enjoys playing tennis, running, scrapbooking, and spending time with husband and daughter.
Kaitlyn Cortez
Graduate Student
Kaitlyn Cortez is currently a doctoral student in the Clinical-Community Psychology program at USC and a trainee in the Behavioral-Biomedical Interface Program (BBIP). She received a B.S. in Neuroscience and Behavior from the University of Notre Dame in 2018 and a M.S. in Applied Developmental Psychology from the University of Pittsburgh in 2022. After graduating with her B.S., Kaitlyn worked as a project coordinator for the Infant Communication Lab under Dr. Jana Iverson, assisting on a longitudinal study of motor and language development in typically developing infants and infants with an elevated likelihood for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). While completing her M.S., Kaitlyn also worked as an intern at the Neonatal Developmental Follow-up Clinic at UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, a clinic providing comprehensive and family-centered follow-up care for infants who have spent time in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Kaitlyn is currently interested in the trajectory of social and emotional development, specifically negative affect and emotion regulation, in children with neurodevelopmental disorders.
Alison Dahlman
Research Specialist
Alison Dahlman graduated from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in May 2024 with a B.S. in Psychology with a minor in Social Work. Throughout her undergraduate career, Alison worked at the STARS lab where she completed her honors thesis on persistence in 6- to 8-year-olds with Williams syndrome. She is now a full-time research specialist at the NDD lab. She is passionate about children with neurodevelopmental disorders such as ADHD and ASD. She is also interested in and has worked with children with a variety of neurogenetic syndromes such as Williams syndrome, Down syndrome, and fragile X syndrome. Alison plans to continue her education by pursing a PhD in either clinical or school psychology.
Rachel Hantman
Doctoral Student
Rachel Hantman is a doctoral student in the Clinical-Community Psychology program here at the UofSC and a trainee in the Behavioral-Biomedical Interface Program. She completed her B.S. in Neurobiology at the University of Washington in 2016 and her M.Ed. in Mind, Brain, and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) in 2017. During her B.S., Rachel worked under Dr. Wendy Stone in the Research in Early Autism Detection and Intervention Lab where she studied parental verbal responsiveness to child communicative acts in relation to ASD-risk. Upon graduating with her M.Ed., she worked at HGSE as a Lab Manager under Dr. Gigi Luk, assisting in a study examining learning outcomes of bilingual, dyslexic, and typically developing adolescences through fMRI and eye tracking. She then worked with Dr. Helen Tager-Flusberg at Boston University where she designed and implemented a qualitative study examining how parents of young adults with ASD believe that their children’s sensory sensitivities impact their transition to adulthood. Currently, Rachel is interested in using biopsychosocial ecological approaches to study neurodevelopmental disorders, specifically regarding how factors that surround children (e.g., parental stress, intervention history) impact and interact with their symptomology, behaviors, and neurobiology in relation to their daily functioning (e.g., anxiety, adaptive functioning).
