Director

Dr. Andres Viana: Dr. Viana is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Houston, a board certified clinical child and adolescent psychologist, and Director of the Child Temperament, Thoughts and Emotion Laboratory. Dr. Viana received his M.S. and Ph.D. in Clinical Child Psychology from Penn State University and completed his psychology residency training at the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC). His research has been funded by the University of Mississippi Medical Center, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), and the University of Houston. He has published over 75 peer-reviewed articles in the area of anxiety in both children and adult populations and is the recipient of several awards, including the Anxiety and Depression Association of America Career Development Award, NIMH’s Child, Intervention, Prevention and Services (CHIPS) Fellowship, and a Faculty Research Mentor Award. He is an active member of several professional organizations, including the Society for Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology and the Association for Cognitive and Behavioral Therapies. He also serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Anxiety Disorders, the Child and Youth Care Forum, and The Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic. His proudest achievement will forever remain being the father of two amazing boys.

Graduate Students

Haley (Conroy) Busch, M.A., LPA
Email: heconroy@CougarNet.UH.EDU
Haley is a fourth-year clinical psychology doctoral student in the Child Temperament, Thoughts, and Emotions Lab at the University of Houston. She graduated from The University of Texas at Austin with a B.A. in Psychology in 2017 and obtained her M.A. in Clinical Psychology from The University of Houston in 2021. Her research interests include the psychosocial factors (e.g., familial, cognitive, cultural, affective) that modulate treatment efficacy of anxiety and related disorders among diverse children, adolescents, and young adults. Haley is planning her dissertation focused on the protective role of parenting and emotion regulation factors in the relation between racism-related stress and internalizing symptoms and sleep outcomes among Black youth.

Master’s thesis: Fearful temperament, social anxiety and depressive symptoms in clinically anxious youth: the role of catastrophizing cognitions (defended, 2021).

Doctoral dissertation: Racial Socialization and Emotion Dysregulation: Associations to internalizing symptoms and sleep disturbance in Black youth (proposed, 2022).  

Mallory Raya Cotton, B.S., A.B.
Email: mrcotton@cougarnet.uh.edu
Mallory is a first-year Clinical Psychology doctoral student in the Child Temperament, Thoughts, and Emotions laboratory. She graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of Georgia in 2022 with a BS in Psychology and an AB in Sociology. Her research interests include internalizing psychopathological risk and protective factors, adverse childhood experiences, and sociocultural mechanisms underlying psychopathology among racial/ethnic minority youth and their caregivers.

Jessica Hernandez Ortiz, M.A.
Email: jghern20@cougarnet.uh.edu
Jessica is a fourth-year doctoral student in the Child, Temperament, Thoughts and Emotions Lab at the University of Houston. She graduated from Prairie View A&M University in 2018 with a B.S. in Psychology and received her M.A. from the University of Houston in 2021. Her research interests are in mechanisms of risk and resilience for the psychosocial development and functioning of youth from marginalized backgrounds, with specific interests in Latinx and immigrant adolescents.

Master's thesis: Caregiver separation, resilience and peer attachment in recently immigrated Latinx youth (defended, 2021). 

Liz Raines, M.A.
Email: elizabeth.raines@times.uh.edu
Liz is a sixth-year doctoral student in the Child Temperament, Thoughts, and Emotions Lab at the University of Houston.She is currently completing her clinical internship at Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, MO. She graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2015 with a B.S. in Psychology and Anthropology and received her M.A. from the University of Houston in 2019. Her research interests include the etiology and maintenance of childhood internalizing psychopathology, specifically temperamental and self-regulatory risk and resilience factors that influence these relations. 

Master’s thesis: Effortful control, interpretation biases, and child anxiety symptom severity in a sample of children with anxiety disorders (defended, 2019).

Dissertation: Childhood Anxiety: The Contributions of Effortful Control, Interpretation Biases, and Early Life Stress (proposed, 2021).

Karina Silva, M.A.
Email: ksilva@cougarnet.uh.edu
Karina is a third-year doctoral student in the Child Temperament, Thoughts, and Emotions Lab at the University of Houston. She graduated from Florida International University in 2016, with a B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Education. Her research interest is primarily in the maintenance of childhood internalizing psychopathology among immigrant and undocumented populations, specifically focused on the risk and resilience factors that influence these relations.

Master's thesis: Social and Adaptive Functioning Deficits in Children with Anxiety Disorders: The Buffering Effects of Effortful Control (defended, 2022).

Erika S Trent, M.Ed.
Email: estrent@uh.edu
Erika is a fifth-year doctoral student in the Child Temperament, Thoughts, and Emotions Lab at the University of Houston. She graduated with a B.S. in Brain and Cognitive Sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2015. She received her M.Ed. in Counseling Psychology from Boston University in 2017 and her M.A. in Clinical Child Psychology from the University of Houston in 2019. Her program of research is focused on the interplay of parenting behaviors and child affective factors that contribute to the development and maintenance of anxiety disorders. Her dissertation project, which has been funded by the American Psychological Association and American Psychological Foundation, examines the relationship between contextual adversity and childhood anxiety symptom severity, and the roles of maternal emotion socialization and child emotion dysregulation underlying in this relationship.

Master’s thesis: Interpretive Biases and Childhood Anxiety: The Moderating Role of Parasympathetic Nervous System Reactivity (defended, 2019).

Doctoral dissertation: Adversity and childhood anxiety: Identifying parental and affective mechanisms (proposed, 2021).  

Former Trainees:

Emma Woodward, Ph.D: Psychologist, Child Mind Institute.

Abby Candelari, Ph.D: Assistant Professor of Psychology, Baylor College of Medicine.

Laura Dixon, Ph.D: Assistant Professor of Psychology, University of Mississippi.

Flint Espil, Ph.D: Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine.

Anyaliese Hancock-Smith, Ph.D: Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Division of Medical Psychology. University of Florida.

Kali Falnes, B.A: Graduate Student, Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri.

Naomi Alphonso, B.S.: Graduate Student, Applied Behavior Analysis, University of Houston- Clear Lake.

Adriana Valdes, B.S.: Graduate Student, School Psychology, University of Houston- Clear Lake.

Hayle Lopez, B.S.: Graduate Student, Master of Social Work Program, University of Houston.