Karrie Godwin, Psychology
(Advisor: Anna Fisher)
2nd PIER and Psychology

Karrie Godwin earned her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology as well as a licensure in Elementary Education from the University of Colorado, Boulder. At the University of Colorado, Karrie conducted research with Dr. Eliana Colunga on children’s early word learning and categorization. Karrie’s undergraduate work and research prompted her interest in the intersect between children’s development and their readiness to learn. These experiences culminated in her decision to pursue graduate work in this domain. Consequently, Karrie earned her Master’s degree in Human Development and Psychology in 2006 from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Karrie worked as a research assistant in Dr. Steven Pinker’s lab where she examined the heritability of linguistic milestones in children’s vocabulary and syntax development.  After graduating from Harvard, Karrie worked as the editorial assistant for the Journal of Educational Psychology and continued to conduct research at the Clayton Early Learning Institute. Karrie’s central research project aimed to evaluate classroom quality and assessed children’s subsequent cognitive growth and development. The aforementioned experiences led Karrie to pursue her doctorate at Carnegie Mellon University where she plans to refine her skills as a researcher. Additionally, she intends to apply her knowledge of development, statistics, and quantitative design to educational topics in order to improve the care and education of young children.

Current research interests: Language acquisition in monolingual and bilingual populations, attention, and categorization.