Aria Gastón-Panthaki

Aria Gastón-Panthaki graduated from Trinity University in 2021 with a B.A. in Psychology. Throughout their undergraduate experience, they conducted research under the guidance of Dr. Carolyn Becker, Dr. Jane Childers, Dr. Nathan Stith, and Dr. Luz Garcini. Each research project taught Aria valuable and unique aspects of research that they hope to carry on in their future research along with publishing two peer-reviewed articles and presenting research at ABCT (2021) and SRCD (2023). Aria has studied an array of subjects from food insecurity, verb learning, theatre, and undocumented immigrants. In each of these studies, Aria has kept a passion for researching marginalized communities and exposing negative biases in different fields.

Currently, Aria works in Dr. Kate McLaughlin's Stress and Development lab at Harvard University. While working on the STAR (studying adolescents in real time) study, they have been able to gain valuable research and clinical skills. As the head of recruitment for the study, Aria has striven to increase the study's economic, racial, gender, and sexual diversity to ensure all voices are heard in the research.

In the future, Aria would like to begin researching playful interventions, especially with marginalized communities. They are fascinated with how play, theatre, and media (tv and film) can be used as educational interventions for children. They plan to apply to developmental graduate programs this fall.