Colleen O'Neal, Ph.D., Lab Director Colleen R. O'Neal is an assistant professor of School Psychology in the College of Education at the University of Maryland, College Park (Department of Counseling, Higher Education, and Special Education). Her primary research goals are to identify risk and resilience processes among minority students with a focus on emotions and stress. She conducts research asking: (1) HOW stress impacts ethnic minority student mental health and academic functioning, (2) WHAT socioemotional learning (e.g., emotion engagement), motivation (e.g., grit), emotion regulation and relationship-based protective factors prevent the negative impact of stress on academic functioning, and (3) WHO is most vulnerable to stress.
Dr. O'Neal earned her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Long Island University in 2000 with NIMH predoctoral fellowship support studying emotions among minority youth facing community violence. She then completed an NIMH postdoctorate in Mental Health Statistics at NYU focused on multilevel, longitudinal analyses of change and psychometrics. She received her B.A. in Psychology at Cornell University and a master's degree in Child and Family Studies at Auburn University. Her work has been published in venues such as Child Development, Journal of Child Psychiatry and Psychology, and Development and Psychopathology. She recently completed minority stress and emotions research supported by a Brain and Behavior Foundation Young Investigator Award, a Fulbright Scholar Award, and a Fulbright New Leaders Group Award.