News and press

**Spring ‘23**

**- Honors students Eryk Mejia, Paola Hernandez, and Anika Islam successfully defended their theses**
**- Natalia Gonzalez joined the lab as an** **Emerging Scholars Summer Intern**
**- Mario Alvarez was accepted into the** **APA Summer Undergraduate Psychology Experience in Research Fellowship**
**-Paola, Eryk, Anika, Vijaya, and Anna graduated from Arizona State University!**
**-Dr. Kelsey Lucca taught at the** **Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute** **in Scotland**

Spring 2023 Lab Memories

Eryk Mejia defends his honors thesis

Paola Hernandez (left) and her mentor Nayen Lee (right) after defending her honors thesis

Anika Islam (center) after defending her honor's thesis with mentor Nayen Lee (left) and Dr. Kelsey Lucca

Honors students Paola, Anika, Gemma, and Eryk (left to right) attend the Society for Research in Child Development conference in Salt Lake City

Anna Hinojosa presents her poster at the Arizona Psychology Undergraduate Research Conference

Paola Hernandez presents at the Arizona Psychology Undergraduate Research Conference

Vijaya Nandiwada-Hofer presents at the Arizona Psychology Undergraduate Research Conference

The EML team at our end-of-semester celebration!

Congratulations to our Spring 2023 graduates!

Spring '22

**-We published a new article with our collaborators, "I Want to Know about My Train! Factors Driving Children’s Motivation to Learn about Individuals**"
**-Alejandro Caballero, an experimenter in our lab, won first place for his presentation on children’s persistence at the AZPURC conference!** **Read the full story here.**
**-Honors students Sonia Patel, Kaitlin Van Houghton, and Nicole Johnson successfully defended their thesis defenses.**
**-EML lab manager, Sarah Kiefer, presented posters on children’s exploration and persistence at the Cognitive Development Society Conference in Madison, WI.**

2022 Lab Memories

We enjoyed several spring lab meetings outdoors in ASU’s secret garden!

ECCRG Tabling at the Arizona Science Center

ASU Developmental Psychology Area took to the trails for a desert clean up event!

Kaitlin Van Houghton presented her honors thesis at the Barrett Honors Poster Symposium

Sonia Patel successfully defended her honors thesis.

Nicole Johnson successfully defended her honors thesis.

Alejandro Caballero, an experimenter in our lab, won first place for his presentation on children’s persistence at the AZPURC conference! Read the full story here.

EML lab manager, Sarah Kiefer, presented posters on children’s exploration and persistence at the Cognitive Development Society Conference in Madison, WI.

The EML celebrated our graduating seniors at our end-of-semester party!

Fall '21

**-Our lab received a 5-year CAREER grant from the National Science Foundation:** “**Cultivating Curiosity to Promote Learning and Discovery**!”
**-Lezxandra Saguid, undergraduate student in the lab, presented research from our** ***Imagine That!*** *project* at Italy’s Marconi Institute for Creativity Conference

Summer '21

**-We welcomed our very first PhD Student to the EML, Nayen Lee!**
**-Sarah Kiefer started as our new lab manager**
-A **pre-print for ManyBabies4** **was was accepted in principle at Developmental Science! Learn more about this collaborative project** **here**

Spring '21

**-ASU Now published an article, “Tiny volunteers help ASU lab study curiosity”, about how the lab turned to technology to continue studying how babies and toddlers learn**
**-Honors students Shani McCollum and Kalie Scirpo successfully defended their theses.**
**-Two EML members accept graduate school offers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Olivia Zimmerman) and the University of Chicago (Vanessa Lazaro)**

2021 Lab Memories

Kalie Scirpo successfully defended her thesis, “Cultivating Curious Kids”, and presented a research poster at AZPURC

Shani McCollum successfully defended her thesis, “When Learning to Play Becomes Playing to Learn”, and presented research posters at AZPURC and Barrett’s Celebrating Honors Symposium

EML celebrated the end of the semester with a virtual escape the room!

EML celebrated Olivia Zimmerman’s acceptance to attend graduate school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

EML celebrated Vanessa Lazaro’s acceptance to attend graduate school at the University of Chicago.

Lex & team celebrated a successful online conference presentation!

EML holiday party 2021!

Fall '20

**-The EML continued to navigate working together as a remote lab team and we launched our very first online studies—*Ready Set Play* and *Aquatic Adventures*!**

Spring '20

**- Dr. Lucca published “Even babies know what’s worth their effort” article**
**- EML received its first grant: An Early Career Collaboration Enhancement Award from the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (sponsored by Templeton World Charity Foundation) to work with** **Mark Ho** **from Princeton University on the computational principles that underlie communication and learning during infancy!**
**- Netflix** ***Babies*** premiered and Part 2, Episode 4 (“Relationships”) highlights our collaborative, international work with Dr. Hamlin investigating how children learn to distinguish good from bad and if babies prefer those who help over those who hinder others
**- ASU Now published an article,** **“How babies think and learn”, about the EML’s research on infants’ effort and nonverbal communication**
**- The EML joined the** **ManyBabies team** **to present updates on the** **ManyBabies4 project** **at a symposium at the (virtual) International Congress for Infant Studies**

2020 Lab Memories

We took our first lab team photos!

The Early Childhood Cognition Research Group received a very enthusiastic seal of approval from Sparky the Sun Devil at ASU’s Open Door event.

Lab paw-sistant, Missandei, prepares bundles of study materials to mail to families for our Ready, Set, Play online study.

Lab paw-sistant, Kiam, helps create study stimuli!

EML members gathered together over Zoom throughout the pandemic.

Fall '19

**-The Emerging Minds Lab Opened and welcomed its very first members: Vanessa Lazaro, Sarah Kiefer, Carlos Gomez, Taylor Henderson!**
**-We invited our very first participants into the lab.**
**-We teamed up with the** **Learning and Development Lab** **to form the** **Early Childhood Cognition Research Group** **(ECCRG)**

2019 Lab Memories

Founding members join the EML: Vanessa Lazaro, Sarah Kiefer, Carlos Gomez, Taylor Henderson

EML tables at AZScience Center for its first family recruitment event

EML teams up with the Learning and Development Lab to form the Early Childhood Cognition Research Group (ECCRG) and puts final touches on our shared waiting room decorations