Preprints
Project Manager
I'm currently a postdoc at the NYU School of Medicine. I work with Dr. Clancy Blair in the Neuroscience and Education Lab, Dr. Natalie Brito in the ISLAND Lab, and Dr. Moriah Thomason in the BabyBEEs Lab. My work is broadly aimed at understanding how early life environments, including parenting practices and maternal health, shape human brain and behavioral development in the presence of risk and opportunity. I am passionate about grounding basic science research with a focus on social responsibility and community advocacy, with the ultimate goal of informing translational intervention-science and policy to help improve the lives of children and their families.
Education
May 2020
May 2015
May 2012
Ph.D. in Cognitive Science
Brown University
Dissertation: Prefrontal Cortex Contributions to Learning in Infancy
Committee: Dr. Dima Amso (chair), Dr. Kevin Bath, & Dr. Michael J. Frank
Sc.M. in Psychology
Brown University
Master's Thesis: Hierarchical Rule Learning & Generalization in Infancy
Committee: Dr. Dima Amso (chair), Dr. Dave Sobel, & Dr. Michael J. Frank
B.S. in Psychology, minor in Computer Science
The University of Arizona
Summa Cum Laude with Honors
Honors Thesis Advisor: Dr. Rebecca Gomez
Research Training
Aug 2020 - present
Sep 2013 - Jun 2020
Jan 2009 - May 2013
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
New York University School of Medicine
Department of Population Health
Department of Child & Adolescent Psychology
Mentors: Dr. Clancy Blair, Dr. Natalie Brito, & Dr. Moriah Thomason
Graduate Research Assistant
Brown University
Department of Cognitive, Linguistic, & Psychological Sciences
Mentor: Dr. Dima Amso
Undergraduate Research Assistant
The University of Arizona
Department of Psychology
Mentor: Dr. Rebecca Gomez
Publications
Signal in the noise: Dimensions of predictability in the home auditory environment are associated with neurobehavioral measures of early infant sustained attention.
Werchan, D. M., Brandes-Aitken, A., & Brito, N. H.
Developmental Psychobiology, in press.
OWLET: An Automated, Open-Source Method for Infant Gaze Tracking using Smartphone and Webcam Recordings.
Werchan, D. M., Thomason, M. E., & Brito, N. H.
Behavior Research Methods, in press.
Sensitive caregiving and reward responsivity: A novel mechanism linking parenting and executive functions development in early childhood
Werchan, D. M., Ku, Seulki, Berry. D. & Blair, C.
Developmental Science, 2022
https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.13293
Paid Maternal Leave is Associated with Infant Brain Function at 3-Months of Age.
Brito, N. H., Werchan, D. M., Brandes-Aitkens, A., Greaves, A. & Zhang, M.
Child Development, 2022
https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13765
Behavioral coping phenotypes and associated psychosocial outcomes of pregnant and postpartum women during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Werchan, D. M., Hendrix, C. L., ..... Thomason, M. E., & Brito, N. H.
Scientific Reports, 2022
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-05299-4
Geotemporal analysis of perinatal care changes and maternal mental health: an example from the COVID-19 pandemic
Hendrix, C. L., Werchan, D. M., ..... Brito, N. H., & Thomason, M. E.
Archives of Women's Mental Health, 2022
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00737-022-01252-6
Perceived discrimination as a modifier of health, disease, and medicine: empirical data from the COVID-19 pandemic
Thomason, M. E., Hendrix, C. L., Werchan, D. M., & Brito, N. H.
Translational Psychiatry, 2022
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41398-022-02047-0
COVID-19 patient accounts of illness severity, treatments and lasting symptoms.
Thomason, M. E., Werchan, D. M., & Hendrix, C. L.
Scientific Data, 2021
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-021-01103-6
Miswiring the brain: Human prenatal Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol use associated with altered fetal hippocampal brain network connectivity.
Thomason, M. E., Palopoli, A. C., Jariwala, N. N., Werchan, D. M., Chen, A., Adhikari, S., Espinoza-Heredia, C., Brito, N. H., & Trentacosta, C. J.
Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 2021
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2021.101000
All contexts are not created equal: Social stimuli win the competition for organizing reinforcement learning in 9-month-old infants.
Werchan, D. M. & Amso, D.
Developmental Science, 2021
https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.13088
A daytime nap combined with nighttime sleep promotes learning in toddlers.
Werchan, D. M., Kim, J., & Gómez, R. L.
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 2021
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2020.105006
Adaptive rule learning of event sequences during the A‐not‐B task in 9‐month‐old infants.
Werchan, D. M. & Amso, D.
Developmental Psychobiology, 2020
https://doi.org/10.1002/dev.21999
Top-down knowledge rapidly acquired through PFC-dependent rule learning biases visual attention in 9-month-old infants.
Werchan, D. M. & Amso, D.
Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 2020
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2020.100761
The emergence of object-based visual attention in infancy: A role for family socioeconomic status and competing visual features.
Werchan, D. M., Lynn, A., Baumgartner, H., Kirkham, N. Z., & Amso, D.
Infancy, 2019
https://doi.org/10.1111/infa.12309
The origins of cortical multisensory dynamics: Evidence from human infants.
Werchan, D. M., Baumgartner, H., Lewkowicz, D. & Amso, D.
Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 2018
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2018.07.002
A novel ecological model of prefrontal cortex functional development.
Werchan, D. M. & Amso, D.
Psychological Review, 2017
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5675045
Role of prefrontal cortex in learning and generalizing hierarchical rules in 8-month-old infants.
Werchan, D. M., Collins, A. G. E, Frank, M. J., & Amso, D.
The Journal of Neuroscience, 2016
https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1351-16.201
Sleep and statistical language learning: Insights into cortical development and retention in 6.5-month-olds.
Simon, K. N. S., Werchan, D. M., Goldstein, M., Sweeney, L., Bootzin, R. R., Nadel, L., & Gómez, R. L.
Brain & Language, 2016
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandl.2016.05.002
Eight-month-old infants spontaneously learn and generalize hierarchical rules.
Werchan, D. M., Collins, A. G. E, Frank, M. J., & Amso, D.
Psychological Science, 2015
https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797615571442
Wakefulness (not sleep) promotes generalization of word learning in 2.5-year-old children.
Werchan, D. M. & Gómez, R. L.
Child Development, 2014
https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12149
Generalizing memories over time: Reinforcement and sleep facilitate transitive inference.
Werchan, D. M. & Gómez, R.L.
Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 2013