Research Team
About the Internship
After at least one semester on a Center for Children and Families (CCF) outreach team, students help collect and conduct research regarding our outreach programs to continually improve our programs and to answer new, pressing research questions driven by our faculty.
CCF Research Team
The CCF Research Team, established in fall 2024, is at the forefront of managing and analyzing data that are collected within CCF.
Currently, the team is working on a project to clean and organize the extensive data gathered from hundreds of families who participated in the Grow With Me (GWM) and Play With Me (PWM) programs. Our goal is to complete data cleaning and organization by 2024 and start preliminary data analyses in spring 2025 to gain insights on how our programs serve the population in North Texas and explore ways to leverage the data for research and further program evaluation.
As PWM and GWM are offered year-round, the team is dedicated to continuous data management and quality assurance, ensuring that all information is entered accurately in a timely manner. This ongoing effort allows us to maintain the integrity of our data and maximize its potential for meaningful research and program enhancement.
Meet the Team
Jingyi Xu
Hi! My name is Jingyi Xu. I’m a postdoc with the Center for Children and Families, and I’m interested in understanding how individual and contextual factors inform child development among families from different cultural contexts in the long term. I oversee the CCF research team and cannot wait to see what the data tell us!
Fun fact: I love sharing snacks, and I always carry more than three snacks in my bag!
Vedanti Deepak Kumbhar
I am a double major in psychology and child development and learning, a student worker for the Play With Me program, and a member of the CCF Research Team. I have loved every minute, from facilitating in the Play With Me Program to organizing events and learning about data organization. Over the past two years, I’ve had the opportunity to grow and experience so much, which has helped me discover my passion for working with children, parents and the community.
Amitha Prattipati
Hello everyone! My name is Amitha, and I am a pre-med student and recent graduate with a bachelor’s in psychology from UTD. I’ve been involved with the Play With Me program since spring 2023. I am very passionate about helping children and families grow in any way I can. I am joining the CCF research team with the intention of learning more about how to integrate data in order to make a greater impact toward my community!
Alexandrea Venus Luong
Hello! I am Alexandrea Luong, and I am a student at The University of Texas at Dallas, majoring in neuroscience. I love learning and researching about all science and developmental related things. My passion is expanding the neuroscience field in all forms and empowering girls to strive for their dreams. With CCF research, I have the opportunity to help and explore new research fields, as well as assisting amazing programs. A fun fact about me is that I read an average 160 books a year!
Nicole Avelene Dsouza
Nicole Dsouza is a sophomore majoring in psychology with a passion for working with children. She joined the CCF research team in fall 2024 and is curious about the impact of poverty on the development of children. She has experience in mentoring middle school children on the growth mindset, which kickstarted her interest in child learning and development. After university, she plans to become a nun and continue her efforts in aiding children in underdeveloped regions through nursing.
Rebecca Glick
Hello! My name is Rebecca Glick, and I graduated with a BS in Neuroscience from Rhodes College in May of 2024. I have had the amazing opportunity to engage in work that is an intersection of my interests in research and child development by working at CCF within a team that organizes and analyzes data collected from the GWM programs. I plan to enter graduate school and obtain a PhD in Counseling Psychology and eventually become a therapist that specializes in treating women with postpartum depression. In my free time, I like to read autobiographies, go to art museums and can bake a mean chocolate cake.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why would I intern with CCF’s research team?
Gain new insights about developmental research, program evaluation and data analysis!
Who should work on the research team?
Students interested in graduate school in psychology or developmental science, or those who want to learn how to use science to evaluative the effectiveness of interventions, community and outreach programs.
What does a semester with the research team look like?
These are students with some experience in our outreach programs, who spend their second semester learning about how the data we collect gets to be analyzed. You should be able to commit at least 6 hours a week to working with our research team.