Cynthia Karras

Cyndy Karras' research interests are founded around two themes with a focus on low-income families: 1)The association between the neighborhood environment and children's development, and 2) The impact of maternal employment on children's cognitive functioning and language development. She has extensive experience working at various research centers working with low-income populations to collect, organize, and analyze data pertinent to her research interests. Her master's thesis analyzed the impact of type of housing (i.e., Public Housing, Section 8, and Private-Market) on children's externalizing behavior and cognitive development. She presented the findings from her research at the Harvard Graduate School of Education's Student Research Conference and is currently working on exploring other mechanisms that might mediate the association between type of housing and child outcomes. She is also working on a paper that explores the impact of violence exposure on adolescents' symptoms of Conduct Disorder and Oppositional Defiant Disorder and the role of social support from family and peers in mediating this association. The next step in her graduate career will be to examine the association between maternal employment status and children's language proficiency as well as mothers' use of state-sponsored or private services for children in need of speech and/or language therapy.