Written by Kaylin Hill, Ph.D.
Hello everyone! I am a current research assistant professor in the Psychology and Human Development department. I first joined the Vanderbilt community as a NIH T32 post-doctoral fellow under the mentorship of Drs. Autumn Kujawa and Kathryn Humphreys. With their support and guidance, and the incredible resources and support offered at Vanderbilt, I attained an NIMH K23 award this past summer. My research uses multiple methods to examine affective processes across the lifespan and within families, particularly as related to mood psychopathology.
My passion for supporting others has led me to pursue research questions related to better understanding depression, how its presentation may differ across developmental periods, and how we can strive for early identification and intervention. Depression is among the most common and costly mental health disorders, and the ultimate aim of my work is to reduce the tremendous burden of the disorder on individuals and families. My research pursues this aim by seeking answers to unresolved questions with a broad methodological toolkit, leveraging expertise in affective neuroscience and developmental psychopathology.
My academic journey started at Butler University, where I earned my bachelor’s degree in art and psychology. My experiences at Butler—in the classroom and community—furthered my passion for service and interest in emotion functioning and mood disorders. I then pursued my doctoral degree in clinical psychology at Purdue University under the mentorship of Dr. Dan Foti, where I gained expertise in psychophysiological methods to pursue these questions. After clinical internship at the University of Notre Dame, I was thrilled to continue my efforts to examine processes related to risk for mood psychopathology across the lifespan under the mentorship of experts in developmental neuroscience and psychopathology. Through my postdoctoral training at Vanderbilt University, I had the opportunity to grow immensely in my understanding of developmental psychopathology, family processes, and infant and early childhood mental health.
My current research focuses on shared affect experiences in caregivers and their young children. Longstanding research suggests that early developmental contexts, particularly between caregiver and child, play a large role in early neural development, and a growing number of studies demonstrate that shared affect may be a key component to these contexts. I am currently pursuing multiple measurement methods to better capture these shared affect moments in caregiver–child pairs as well as how the neural functioning of caregivers and children may impact, and be impacted by, these experiences. I am incredibly excited to contribute to this literature, with an eye toward translational implications of this work, to ultimately reduce the burden of mood psychopathology on individuals and families. I have enjoyed my time here at Vanderbilt immensely, and I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to learn and contribute in this community.