People
Principal Investigator
Jennie Noll, PhD
Principal Investigator, Noll Lab
Professor of Psychology, Developmental Area
Executive Director, Mt. Hope Family Center
Jennie G Noll, PhD is a Professor of Psychology and Executive Director of Mount Hope Family Center at the University of Rochester. For the past three decades, Dr. Noll has been conducting research to strengthen causal inference regarding the developmental and biologic impacts of child abuse and neglect through longitudinal, prospective research and contiguous funding as Principal Investigator from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) totaling over $34,000,000. Her primary research foci include: the bio-psycho-social consequences of childhood sexual abuse, pathways to teen pregnancy and high-risk sexual behaviors for abused and neglected youth, the long-term adverse health outcomes abuse survivors, midlife reversibility of neurocognitive deficits in stress-exposed populations, the impact of high-risk internet and social media behaviors on teen development, and the primary prevention of sexual abuse. She has been the Program Director of two NIH-funded Centers of Excellence in the child maltreatment sciences (P50HD089922 and P50 P50HD096698) as well a T32 training grant (T32HD101390). Results from several of Dr. Noll’s longitudinal studies are published in high-impact journals such as Nature and JAMA series and have informed public policy recommendations for child abuse prevention and treatment by Joint State Government Commissions, the Institute of Medicine, the World Health Summit, and for several U.S. Congressional briefings and hearings. The thrust and aims of Dr. Noll’s research, centers of excellence, and infrastructure grants leverage translational messaging from cutting-edge science to aid evidence-informed policymaking focused on imploring a larger public investment in the primary prevention of child maltreatment and in improving the lives of survivors.
Trainees
Hannah Swerbenski, PhD
Postdoctoral Research Associate, Noll Lab, Mt. Hope Family Center
Dr. Swerbenski received her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from the University of Rochester, with specializations in developmental psychopathology and advanced quantitative methods. Broadly construed, her research interests concern developmental psychopathology, the intergenerational transmission of adversity, and developmental sequelae of child maltreatment. In particular, Dr. Swerbenski is interested in how early experiences of child abuse and neglect impact parenting in the next generation and disentangling physiological and psychological mediating mechanisms of this association. Her current research program expands this line of work to also focus on mechanisms of biological embedding of stress following exposure to childhood sexual abuse, particularly using advanced longitudinal modeling methods.
Catherine (Katy) Elliott
PhD Student (Entry Year: 2024), Noll Lab, Mt. Hope Family Center
Katy Elliot is interested in exploring biomarkers that may help elucidate how child maltreatment impacts health across the lifespan, including inflammation markers and various indicators of stress response functioning. In her future research, Katy hopes to integrate psychobiology and developmental psychopathology perspectives to better understand the deleterious effects of child maltreatment. She is also interested in supporting community-engaged research aimed at primary prevention of child abuse.
Undergraduate Research Assistants:
Alyssa Horng
Andrea Okocha
Marwaan Maxamuud
Naidhruva Deb
Trisha Mondal
