Additional Research Interests: Hormones/Endocrinology
The goal of my research is to leverage network analysis techniques to uncover how the brain mediates sex hormone influences on gendered behavior across the lifespan. Thus, there are quantitative and substantive components to the work being conducted in the Methods, Sex differences, and Development – M(SD) – lab that I direct. Quantitative work concerns creating and applying connectivity analyses, such as unified structural equation models, to time series data; these are intensive longitudinal data, including functional neuroimages, daily diaries, and observations. Substantive work concerns investigating the links between androgens (e.g., testosterone) and estradiol at key developmental periods, such as puberty, on behaviors that typically show sex differences, including aspects of cognition (e.g., mental rotations and verbal fluency) and psychopathology (e.g., substance use and depression). Most of my research comes from a person-specific perspective, owing to the heterogeneity that exists across people, gendered processes, and time.