Academic Record

Curriculum Vitae

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Contact Information

Christian M. Jerry

Email: christian.jerry@uga.edu

GitHub  ·  Google Scholar

Education & Training

M.A. in Behavioral & Brain Sciences

University of Georgia – Athens  ·  2026

Advisor: Dr. Drew Abney (PI)

Thesis: Children’s Physiological Responses to the Onset of Mother Utterances in Mother Child Dyads.

ICIS Founding Generation Summer Fellowship

University of Miami, Florida  ·  2022

Advisors: Dr. Daniel Messinger (PI) & Dr. Sam Mitsven

Project: Preschool Interactions during COVID‑19: Effects of Safety Regulations on Vocalizations and Proximity in the Classroom

Bachelor of Arts in Psychology

Indiana University – Bloomington  ·  2021

Advisors: Dr. Chen Yu (PI), Dr. Sara Schroer, & Dr. Drew Abney

Research Interests

Development and Learning Language and Cognitive Development Perception and Action Visual Attention Social Interactions Computer Vision & Machine Learning

Programming Languages

Python HTML R MatLab

Selected Awards

Richard L. Marsh Mentoring Award

2023  ·  Commemorates Dr. Marsh's extraordinary commitment to mentoring. Awarded annually to a faculty member and graduate student deeply committed to research mentoring.

Presidential Graduate Fellow Award

2022 – 2026  ·  University of Georgia  ·  $7,000/year

Prestigious four-year fellowship offering annual stipend, travel support, departmental assistantships, and tuition waivers.

ICIS Undergraduate Fellowship

International Congress of Infant Studies  ·  2021  ·  $4,000

Pairs promising students with leading researchers for an intensive 8-week period.

Conference Posters

Jerry, C. M., Kolberg, A., Mazzella, S., Lee, S., Suveg, C., & Abney, D. (2024). Physiological responses to the onset of mother & child utterances in a stress‑inducing dyadic task [Poster presentation]. The IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning (ICDL), Austin, Texas.

Jerry, C. M., Steffen, G., Bell, C., Kolberg, A., Patel, B., & Abney, D. (2024). The operationalization of coordinated attention and the relations to language development: A meta‑analysis [Poster presentation]. International Conference of Infant Studies (ICIS), Glasgow, Scotland.

Publications

Steffen, G. M., Jerry, C. M., Bell, C., Kolberg, A. R., Patel, B., & Abney, D. H. (2024). The operationalization of coordinated attention and the relations to language development: A meta‑analysis. Advances in Child Development and Behavior, 66, 81‑107.

Abney, D. H., Jerry, C. M., Smith, L. B., & Yu, C. (2024). Look before you reach: Fixation‑reach latencies predict reaching kinematics in toddlers. Infancy, 29(1), 6‑21.

Mitsven, S. G., Perry, L. K., Jerry, C. M., & Messinger, D. S. (2022). Classroom language during COVID‑19: Associations between mask‑wearing and objectively measured teacher and preschooler vocalizations. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 874293.

Messinger, D. S., Perry, L. K., Mitsven, S. G., Tao, Y., Moffitt, J., Fasano, R. M., ... & Jerry, C. M. (2022). Computational approaches to understanding interaction and development. In Advances in Child Development and Behavior (Vol. 62, pp. 191‑230). JAI.

Teaching & Instructional Experience

PSYC – 3990 Research Analysis in Psychology

Teaching Assistant  ·  4 Semesters

Covered basic concepts and quantitative methods in psychological research using R Studio.

Research Experience

Indiana University — Department of Psychology

Chen Yu Lab of Computational Cognition and Learning Laboratory  ·  January 2018 – 2022

Undergraduate Research Assistant

  • Attended weekly lab/project meetings to discuss research articles and current projects.
  • Performed behavioral coding of infant behaviors such as arm movements and vocalizations.
  • Organized and maintained study spaces and assessment tools.

Final Projects

  • Distance and Motion Between Dyads (2019–2020): Determined and categorized distances between dyads during free play and joint attention. (Advisor: Dr. Sara Schroer)
  • Sensorimotor Integration in Naturalistic Contexts (2018): Investigated whether fixation‑reach latencies predicted reaching kinematics toward an object. (Advisor: Dr. Drew Abney)

University of Miami Florida — Department of Psychology

Early Play and Development Laboratory  ·  2021 – 2022

Internships & Research Assistant

  • Internships: ICIS Undergraduate Fellowship, REU, & SURF.
  • Attended courses on Python, R, GitHub, and computer terminal navigation; participated in project meetings and analyzed/coded data visualizations.

Final Project

  • Preschool Interactions during COVID‑19: Effects of Safety Regulations on Vocalizations and Proximity in the Classroom (2021). (Advisors: Dr. Daniel Messinger & Dr. Sam Mitsven)

Professional Affiliations

International Conference of Infant Studies IEEE Computational Intelligence Society

Mentorship

Sophie Mazzella
2022–2024
Sabina Lee
2023–2024
Amanda Kolberg
2022–2025
Sarah Jane Ellington
2023–2025
Kaitlyn Meland
2023–2025
Samira Butts
2023–2025
Delaney Mendoza
2024–2025
Shreya Lakshmisha
HS Student · Summer 2022
Sabrina Golden
2023 – 2026
Avery Criss
2024 – 2026

References

Drew Abney Dept. of Psychology, University of Georgia drew.abney@uga.edu
Chen Yu Dept. of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin chen.yu@austin.utexas.edu
Sara Schroer Dept. of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin saraschroer@austin.edu
Daniel Messinger Dept. of Psychology, University of Miami Florida dmessinger@miami.edu
Cynthia Suveg Dept. of Psychology, University of Georgia csuveg@uga.edu