WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF DR. JILLIAN PIERUCCI

Gabriella Garcia

Alumna, St. Mary's University

Gabriella is a former research assistant with Dr. Pierucci and a first year doctoral student at Texas Tech University in the Human Development and Family Studies Department. Her research at St. Mary's University explored available ASD services in South Africa. She has always had a passion to work with children and has volunteered her time as a catechist at her local church for 3 years, working and teaching children between the ages of 6 to 8. After taking Atypical Child Development at St. Mary's, she is now inspired to pursue her PhD in development. She hopes to devote her career to helping families and children with atypicalities with intervention and educational services. 

Matthew Gutierrez

Alumnus, St. Mary's University

Matt graduated in spring 2020 and is interested in motor performance of athletes. He experimentally examined the effects of different types of self imagery (cognitive vs. physical vs. use of both vs. control group) with a combination of different practice styles (massed practice vs. distributed practice) on free-throw performance in college students. He is now pursuing a Master of Science in Kinesiology with a sport psychology emphasis at the University of North Texas.

Colin Platz

Alumnus, St. Mary's University

Colin graduated in spring 2020 and worked on the Zambia early intervention project. He transcribed semi-structured interviews with key Zambian stakeholders in the field of child development. He is now pursuing his JD at the University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce School of Law.

Gaby Aquino

Alumna, St. Mary's University

Gaby was a research assistant for Dr. Pierucci from 2017 to 2019 participating in home-based early intervention programs for children with developmental delays. As a McNair scholar, she focused on determining the most effective statistical analysis (i.e., One-Way ANOVA), for teachers who wish to measure the impact of their pedagogical interventions. Inspired by her own experiences growing up, Gaby researched possible consequences that a childhood parental divorce may have on the self-esteem and self-efficacy of young adults. Moreover, she was involved in an international project with Dr. Pierucci implementing Project ImPACT in Lusaka, Zambia, Africa. She is now a second year PhD student in the HDFS department at The University of Texas at Austin working with Dr. Deborah Jacobvitz.

Cynthia Anderson

PhD Student, St. Mary's University

Cynthia Anderson is a fourth-year doctoral student in the counselor education and supervision program at St. Mary’s University. She served as a graduate research assistant for Dr. Pierucci in the summer of 2019. She is an active, motivated, and passionate researcher who produced semi-structured interview questions to assist in culturally modifying an early intervention curriculum for implementation in Zambia. Cynthia’s commitment to excellence in research and education, her ability to thinking creatively, and her past international service endeavors were some of the strengths she brought to the project.  In the past, she has served on the board for Bandera County Sister Cities Partnership in the role of coordinating goodwill visits and educational programs to Poland and Ukraine.  She has also travelled to China with a counselor group outreach program.

Brissa Ytuarte

MS Student, St. Mary's University

Brissa Ytuarte was a graduate research assistant in 2019. She worked on a grant application focused on culturally adapting current early intervention frameworks for low- and middle-income countries. In addition, Brissa transcribed data from Zambian stakeholder interviews to assist with qualitative analyses. Brissa gave feedback to undergraduate students on their early intervention research presentations and contributed to scholarly presentations. Brissa has six years of early childhood intervention experience as a speech therapist assistant in the rural areas of Guadalupe and Gonzales counties in Texas. She has coached and trained parents to implement effective strategies for their children diagnosed with speech and language disorders, Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, sensory processing disorder, and autism spectrum disorder, to name a few. Given that the counties are understaffed, there is a high turnover rate among therapists in these areas and growing populations are in need of these services, Brissa returned to graduate school as an Industrial Organizational Psychology student to learn how to better efficiently increase productivity, wellness, and early intervention programs in Texas. She is enrolled in the Master's I/O graduate program and will be graduating in the fall of 2020. She is interested in selection, training, and development in the therapist or medical fields.

Gonzalo Guerra

Alumnus & PhD student, St. Mary's University

Gonzalo was a research assistant for Dr. Pierucci in 2018. As a McNair scholar, he applied previous findings about advantages of alternative statistical analysis on national data to assess efficacy in practice. His current research is in comparative psychology, viewing creative behaviors in dolphins from Roátan, Honduras, South America. Additionally, Gonzalo worked alongside other faculty members to further their research projects. His goal is to find better ways to determine and measure behaviors in order to predict congruencies between genetically similar species or individual members of the same species. He has also conducted a single case study on the limitations of instrumental punishment comparing levels of contiguity in the cessation of smoking tobacco. His professional goals are behavioral, comparative, and experimental psychology. He is planning to pursue his doctoral degree in comparative psychology, and he believes behaviors and addictions can be monitored and alleviated through accurate conditioning procedures and scaffolding. He is now pursuing his PhD in Counselor Education and Supervision at St. Mary's University.

Alex Pearson, MA

Alumna, St. Mary's University

Alex Pearson is a former research assistant under the Speed Peace and Justice fellowship with Dr. Pierucci. This project focused on implementing a parent-mediated early intervention curriculum (Project ImPACT) for children with atypical development in Lusaka, Zambia, Africa. In addition, she has written a grant proposal, with Dr. Pierucci’s collaboration, to educate and train parents in San Antonio, TX about important developmental psychology topics. Formerly, she worked at the ABA Center for Excellence as a Licensed Registered Behavior Technician for two years, helping to create and implement behavior improvement plans. Alongside this position and her passion for working with children, she is furthering her education and career in Industrial/Organizational psychology. She is currently working toward her Masters in the I/O program at the University of Houston - Clear Lake. Her professional goals include management training program development and evaluation within the workplace, and she is doing ground breaking work in the autistic community with her current employer, Potentia.

Shawneé Pelletier

Alumna, St. Mary's University

Shawneé Pelletier is a former research assistant for Dr. Pierucci. She assisted with data entry and coding for the Brighton Project. This project focused on exploring social behavior and reciprocity between parents and their children with developmental delays. Previously, she interned with Aleuro Inc. as a human resources recruiter for the company’s Account Manager position. There, she recruited potential job applicants, conducted follow-up calls for interviews, screened resumes, organized schedule for preliminary and secondary interviews, and maintained applicant and interview data. She is interested in furthering her education in forensic psychology and obtaining a Master’s degree. Her professional goals include providing counseling and support to crime victims involved in the judicial system.

Jennifer Hernandez

Alumna, St. Mary’s University

Jennifer is a former research assistant under the mentorship of Dr. Pierucci during the year of 2017. She graduated with her B.A. in Exercise and Sports Science with a minor in Psychology. During this time, she developed the methodology of a project investigating how instructors teach developmental sciences through hands-on learning. Additionally, she participated in other research analyzing home-based early intervention programs for children with atypical development. Jennifer was involved at The Foundation School for Autism where she worked closely with certified staff, occupational and speech therapists, in which the program focuses on applied behavior analysis and intervention strategies for children between the ages 2-7 diagnosed with autism. She started her Master of Arts in the Clinical Psychology program at Midwestern State University in fall 2018. Thereafter, she plans to pursue her PhD in Clinical Psychology with an emphasis on child development.