Co-Hosted with the UC Davis Psychology Department

Monica Tsethlikai is a former William T. Grant Scholar, a Native Children’s Research Exchange Scholar and the recipient of two Ford Fellowships. She is an enrolled member of the Zuni Tribe. Prior to obtaining her doctorate degree, her on-the-ground involvement in juvenile justice led to her interest in studying children’s cognitive development as embedded within their social and cultural contexts. She uses a process model approach to examine how children’s daily activities and stressful life experiences impact executive function development and both directly and indirectly influence well-being.  Currently, she is conducting research among urban American Indian youth to examine whether active engagement in American Indian cultural and spiritual activities buffers the known negative effects of toxic stress on the development of executive functions. She is also exploring relations among stressful life experiences, stress physiology (using hair cortisol), and trauma symptoms in this population.