Principal Investigator
Kaya de Barbaro, PhD
Associate Professor, University of Texas at Austin
kaya@austin.utexas.edu
My background is in cognitive science, an interdisciplinary field where I was trained in methods and theories from psychology, neuroscience, philosophy and computer science. My expertise is in developmental science, and my work spans the domains of social, cognitive, motor, and physiological development. Across these domains, I have characterized the microdynamics of infants’ activity—as they use their eyes and hands to play and explore while expressing patterns of arousal and affect. To capture infants’ activity in high resolution, I have used tools ranging from fine-grained video analyses to eyetracking and physiological sensors. I have developed a unique methodological toolkit to make sense of and quantify theoretically-interesting patterns in these high-density datasets.
My current research is in the emerging field of computational behavioral science, bridging insights from developmental science, clinical psychology, computer science, and electrical engineering. My lab uses mobile and wearable sensors to gain unprecedented access into the daily experiences of mothers and their infants. The goals of this work are to access the basic mechanisms of maternal mental health and infant social-emotional development, and ultimately to develop “just in time” interventions for cases of high risk, such as the transmission of risks for depression from mothers to infants.
Graduate Students
Priyanka Khante, MS
6th year Electrical and Computer Engineering PhD Student
priyanka.khante@utexas.edu
Priyanka Khante received her BS in Computer Science from Stony Brook University in 2014 and her MS in Computer Science with a Robotics Portfolio from UT Austin in 2017. Her master’s thesis focused on constructing a framework for robots to learn attributes of real-world everyday objects. She proposed an unsupervised hierarchical clustering-based model that grouped objects with similar attributes based on multi-modal sensory data obtained from the robot’s physical exploration of real-world objects. She also implemented perception pipelines and constructed situated knowledge bases for robots.
Priyanka is currently a PhD student in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering under the supervision of Dr. Kaya de Barbaro and Dr. Edison Thomaz. Her interest lies in the interdisciplinary field of machine learning and psychology. She has investigated the affect dynamics between mothers with a history of depression and their infants using unsupervised hierarchical clustering. Her current work uses unsupervised and semi-supervised machine learning techniques to discover meaningful events and activities in naturalistic household audio obtained from infant-worn sensors.
Taylor Wilds, MS
2nd year Developmental Psychology PhD Student
tlwilds@utexas.edu
Taylor Wilds (she/her) received a B.A. in Psychology and Neuroscience from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2016. In 2020, she received an MS degree in Clinical Psychological Science from the University of Maryland, College Park where she spent two years researching the influence of environmental factors (e.g., social support, pollution, greenspace, community resources) on child development.
Taylor joined the Daily Activities Lab in Fall 2023 under the mentorship of Dr. Kaya de Barbaro. She is interested in a biopsychosocial model of mental health that leverages mixed methodologies within biobehavioral assessment (e.g., heart rate, RSA, synchrony) to examine the associations between risk and protective factors at multiple levels of a child’s ecosystem (e.g., maternal mental health, parent-child interactions, environment). She is firmly committed to investing in the health and well-being of underrepresented communities.
Xiping Jiang, MS
1st year Developmental Psychology PhD Student
jxp@utexas.edu
Xiping Jiang (he/him) obtained his bachelor’s degree in psychology from a joint undergraduate program between Southwest University (China) and Australian National University (Australia) and then completed a dual-major master’s degree in human development (ISHD) and learning science (LST) at the University of Pennsylvania. He participated in research related to children development, parenting, and well-being during his previous stage, and also served as a part-time mental health supporter at two high schools and an intern at a psychological counseling chatbot company. Through much exploration, Xiping has identified his interests in children’s social emotional development.
Xiping is currently a PhD student under Dr. Kaya de Barbaro’s supervision. He is particularly interested in children’s development from the perspective of complex systems. He is very curious about how daily events occurring in microsystems slowly affect children’s development and mental health, and how the interaction of various factors in these systems changes. He attempts to learn and use advanced statistical methods to answer these questions. Xiping is from a low-resource area; he is eager to serve the children development and family systems in disadvantaged areas.
Research Coordinators
Kasey Gerencer, MA
Kasey Gerencer (she/her) holds a Bachelor of Arts in Neuroscience from Earlham College and a Master of Arts in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Maine. She has contributed to projects exploring neuropsychological testing, self-care, and cognition in older adults, as well as the cognitive effects of hormonal oral contraception using animal models. At the Nathan Kline Institute, Kasey was involved in studies on epilepsy, Alzheimer’s disease, and traumatic brain injury, conducting various behavioral experiments and data analysis.
Currently, Kasey works as a Research Coordinator in Dr. de Barbaro’s lab, where she focuses on understanding how infants learn in real time and in more naturalistic environments. Kasey’s academic interests include investigating maternal mental health, the psychological construct of joy, attachment and trauma, and the impact of secondary caregiver support, with the goal of elucidating their roles in shaping health outcomes for both mother and child.
Karina De La Torre Pinedo, BS
Karina De La Torre Pinedo (she/her) received a B.S. in Psychology from Emory University in 2024. She completed her senior honors thesis on the relationships between Emotional Intelligence and subtle forms of racism (e.g., Bayesian racism, Tolerance of Racism, and Intervention).
Karina joined the Daily Activities Lab as a Research Coordinator in Summer 2024, focusing on understanding how infants learn in real time in more naturalistic environments. Her current research interests are in understanding how parent-child and sibling dynamics related to norm enforcement and quality of relationship are interconnected to emotional intelligence, mental health outcomes, and behavior in children.
Graduate Research Assistants
Yashaswi Galhotra
Undergraduate Research Assistants
Alexys Castillo
Amy Conde
Ana Mairena
Lab Alumni
Dr. Xuewen Yao (Data Scientist at Microsoft)
Miriam Mikhelson (MA student; current MSS student in Social Work at Bryn Mawr College)
Hannah Levin (MA student; current PhD student in Media, Technology, and Society at Northwestern University)
Mckensey Johnson (lab manager; Research Analyst at Gallup)
Lara Andres (lab manager; applying to graduate school)
Dr. Meg Micheletti (Post-doctoral Scholar at UCLA)
Dr. Anna Madden-Rusnak (Research Scientist at Dell Medical School Department of Women’s Health)
Graduate Research Assistants
Li Nie
Mingyang Ke
Yicheng Zhang
Yizhen Wang
Undergraduate Research Assistants
Adrian Luong
Alexis Dominguez
Angeline Ajit
Ashna Dhaduti
Avrey Curry
Brandon Thint
Brianna Lee
Brooke Benson
Caity Campbell
Cameron Hall
Cara Coligan
Caroline Whitmarsh
Christine Liu
Daisy Green
Derian Lee
Gabby Trejo
Grace Chang
Grace Kim
Isa Barnes
Jenna Guzman
Jessie Berry
Kara Kaur
Kate Neal
Kathryn Mootz
Lesly Chavez
Loreily Limon
Loryn Bailey
Mackenzie Roach
Magisha Radjendran
Mahyar Hassim
Mai Le
Myra Kurjee
Neha Momin
Nehaa Dambala
Nina Nariman
Qinwen Zhou
Rehman Zindani
Rosa Juan
Samantha Greenlaw
Udita Thapar
Vanessa Alonzo
Veronica Cantu