I am currently working on a series of studies investigating the game of chess and its multifaceted interface with our social world. For example, one investigation is purposed to examine the social identity of expert chess players relative to novices on a popular chess playing site. Another investigation is focused on the effects of stereotype threat on acquisition of checkmating skills in women. A planned study will examine the efficacy of a series of interventions to reduce the influence of stereotype threat on chess performance and examine the longer term consequences of improved chess self-efficacy for development of self-efficacy in other domains, especially science and mathematics domains for young girls.

My studies in the past five years have included: the relationships between frugality, subjective well-being, and rumination; the possibility of frugality as a predictor of racial and cultural differences in growth of wealth and retirement savings; the validation of the PADDS -- a system to measure ADHD in pre-adolescent children; investigating the effects of distanced focused versus immersion focused processing of memories on affective and physiological states; involved in program evaluation of the Partnership for Reform in Science and Mathematics (PRISM) as well as educational research exploring the impact of professional development emerging from high versus low quality professional learning communities on teaching performance and learning outcomes; examining the impact of the jigsaw classroom on science attitudes among middle school science students; examining the impact of active learning approaches incorporating student response systems on educational outcomes and student retention rates; consulting work involving needs assessment for rape crisis center programming in schools in local community.