Graduate Students
LaTreese Hall, Doctoral Student
LaTreese is a fourth year doctoral student in the Developmental Science program. She has a B.S. in psychology from Central Michigan University and a M.A. in Education and Psychology from Liberty University. As a master's student at Liberty University, she piloted a bullying intervention study. LaTreese's current research interests include spatial language development, and exploring those environmental factors (SES, parent language input) that explain individual differences in spatial language development. LaTreese was awarded the FIU Inclusion Fellowship in 2019 so that she can focus exclusively on her research interests while at FIU. For her master's project, LaTreese is exploring how parent and child prosocial language is related to parent and child spatial language use. She also has other research projects that examine children and parent's math talk and how math talk is related to children's developing spatial abilities.
Carlos Jesus Desme, Doctoral Student
Carlos Jesus Desme is a third year doctoral student in the Developmental Science program. Carlos obtained his bachelors degree in Psychology and was a post-baccalaureate research assistant in the PLSD lab until Fall 2020 when he started the graduate program at FIU. As a post-bac research assistant, Carlos carried out an independent research study examining the direct and indirect effects of prior engagement in spatial activities, spatial anxiety and participant confidence on sex differences in adult mental rotation ability. For his master's thesis, Carlos is now exploring how these various factors explain individual and sex differences in both mental rotation and perspective taking as well as how variability in these spatial abilities relates to performance in STEM courses such as Calculus, Physics, Chemistry and Biology.
Karinna Rodriguez, Doctoral Student
Karinna Rodriguez is a second year doctoral student in the PLSD lab. Karinna has a master's degree from University of North Florida in Psychology. Karinna is interested in how preschool aged children solve mental rotation tasks and will be using eye tracking to examine the types of cognitive strategies they use.
Nicholas Mattox, Doctoral Student
Nick is second year doctoral student in the Developmental Science Program. Nick earned a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Texas Christian University and a master’s degree in Applied Cognition and Neuroscience from The University of Texas at Dallas. Nick is interested in how improvements in spatial language and changes in the hippocampus contribute to the development of spatial navigation.
