School of Humanities and Sciences
Showing 1-16 of 16 Results
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Virginia A. Marchman
Casual - Non-Exempt, Psychology
Staff, PsychologyBioAs a developmental psychologist, my main areas of research are language development, language disorders, and early childhood development. I have worked extensively with parent report measures of early vocabulary, specifically, the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories (CDIs). I serve on the CDI Advisory Board, and have worked on many projects including the Web-CDI, the CDI Scoring program, and Wordbank, an open repository of CDI instruments from many different languages. My current studies examine links between children's language processing skill, early learning environments, and individual differences in language development in monolingual and bilingual learners from diverse backgrounds. Our team also explores the importance of environmental stimulation in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), showing that early engagement in developmental care activities (e.g., skin-to-skin care, holding, talking) has important consequences for positive neurological and behavioral outcomes. I am also involved in a large-scale NIH-funded project following infants born preterm from birth to 18 months, examining the neurodevelopmental and environmental influences on development in this at risk population. In addition to conducting studies that have a basic science focus, I have also been Director of Program Evaluation for the Habla Conmigo project, overseeing the evaluation of parenting intervention programs designed to facilitate caregiver engagement in Latina mothers and their young children.
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Aaron Mascarenhas
Ph.D. Student in Anthropology, admitted Autumn 2023
GR Student Worker, AnthropologyBioI currently practice as a doctor and a medical anthropologist. I completed my MBBS (Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery) at Kasturba Medical College, Mangalore, India. My experience as a medical practitioner strengthened my conviction that there was much that contemporary medical pedagogy did not teach its students about health, care, and healing. I spent the next few years as a student of the humanities. I obtained a Master's in Liberal Studies from Ashoka University, Sonipat, India, where I studied the relationship between the linguistic and ethical dimensions of medical eponyms named after perpetrators of the Holocaust. At Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada, I completed an MA in Philosophy. My final project at Simon Fraser developed a framework to recognise oppression experienced by patients as they attempted to partake in knowledge production during their encounter with biomedical systems.
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Mandla T. Msipa
Master of Arts Student in Communication, admitted Autumn 2023
Admit Weekend Coordinator, Political Science
Admit Weekend Coordinator, UGABioMandla Msipa (he/him) is an undergraduate at Stanford University pursuing a Bachelor of Arts with Honors in Political Science and a Coterminal Master of Arts in Communications (Media Studies) .
A Zimbabwean-American, Mandla spent 13 years in Harare under the SJET school system and attained A-Level qualifications from Cambridge International. After graduating, he worked as a Junior Master at St. John’s College, Harare, teaching in the History and English departments. After his freshman year, Mandla interned in the DC office of US Senator Edward J. Markey (D-MA), where he worked on education and labor policy, communications, and constituent services.
At Stanford, Mandla is a Research Assistant in the Political Science Department, where he studies political demonization in media and legislative discourse. He serves as the Financial Manager at Hammarskjöld House and is an Admit Weekend Coordinator for the Office of Undergraduate Admissions. He also served on the Undergraduate Senate in 2024, advocating for housing accessibility and student co-operatives.
Mandla’s research interests lie at the intersection of politics, education, and digital media. He is particularly focused on K-12 governance structures, teacher-student relationship dynamics at the system level, digital literacy education, and the role of internet exposure in the early formation of political ideology. Additionally, he is interested in how information and communication technologies (ICTs) can be leveraged for democratization in Sub-Saharan Africa.
