Who We Are
The Youth, Media, & Wellbeing Research Lab grows out of the expertise, interests, and experiences of seasoned and emerging scholars committed to exploring adolescent development and the various factors that contribute to their identity and wellbeing. A project of the Wellesley Centers for Women at Wellesley College, the Lab builds off the legacy of deep social science research that grows out of the lives of women and girls, families and communities. Our work is bolstered by the perspectives and insights of Wellesley College undergraduates who contribute to our research projects.
Our Team
Director/Principal Investigator, Senior Research Scientist
Linda Charmaraman, PhD, is a senior research scientist at Wellesley Centers for Women and founder and director of the Youth, Media, & Wellbeing Research Lab. Her research focuses on risky and resilient digital media behaviors within vulnerable peer and family contexts. Recent research interests include digital citizenship and how to engage youth in (re)defining and monitoring healthy digital media use.
Alyssa Gramajo is a Research Associate at the Wellesley Centers for Women at Wellesley College. At WCW, Gramajo supports the work of the Youth, Media & Wellbeing Research Lab as the project coordinator for data collection. In this capacity, Gramajo is a liaison to schools overseeing recruitment and scheduling, data management, dissemination projects, and manuscript editing. She also works closely with the lab’s Wellesley College student research assistants and interns.
Wellesley College Department of Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction Lab and Media Arts and Sciences (MAS) program
Catherine co-leads the Youth, Media, & Wellbeing Research Lab activities pertaining to summer STEM workshops and developing apps for healthy social media use in middle school. Her research interests focus on how people relate to each other through social technologies and the social implications of our increasing dependence on the internet.
WCW UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH ASSISTANTS AND INTERNS
Wellesley College class of 2025
Major: Political Science
Wellesley College class of 2025
Major: Data Science with a concentration in Bioinformatics
MORE INTERNS AND VOLUNTEERS
Wellesley College class of 2023
Majors: Psychology and Spanish
Wellesley College class of 2023
Majors: Biological Sciences and Education Studies
Maya Hernandez is a Ph.D. student in the Social Ecology Core program at University of California, Irvine. She received her B.A. in Psychology from Johns Hopkins University and served as a clinical research coordinator at Stanford University School of Medicine prior to graduate school. Maya’s current research interests include an interdisciplinary approach to family mental health and the effects of technology on childhood development. She currently collaborates with the YMW research lab on parental monitoring of social media use.
Wellesley College class of 2021
Research assistant since 2020, 2021-2021 Class of ‘67 Intern
Major: Sociology
Wellesley College class of 2024
Majors: Media Arts and Science (MAS) and Psychology
Wellesley College class of 2023
Major: Neuroscience, Minor: Women's & Gender Studies
Srimayee is a graduate in Childhood Education from Hunter College, CUNY. She is currently assisting at the SMILE Lab, located in Teachers College, Columbia University. Prior to this, she was associated with the Alberti Center for Bullying Abuse Prevention, University at Buffalo where her book chapter on “Bystander Intervention in Cyberbullying” is due for publication.
These students are alumni of the Youth, Media, & Wellbeing Research Lab, having served as research interns, data collectors, or human-computer interaction interns.
Youth Advisory Board
The Youth, Media & Wellbeing Research Lab’s Youth Advisory Board (YAB) informs the development of our STEM & Digital Wellbeing Workshops.
Our Partners
Funders
This work is made possible by the support of major federal and foundation grants and gift-funded awards. Funding has come from the National Institutes of Health; Children and Screens: Institute of Digital Media & Child Development; Robert Wood Johnson Foundation New Connections program; I Am Strong Foundation; Morningstar Family Foundation: Wellesley Centers for Women’s 35th Anniversary Fund; Susan McGee Bailey Women’s Perspective Fund; Harold Benenson Memorial Grant; Nan May Holstein New Directions Award; Wellesley Centers for Women Class of ‘67 Internship Programs; Wellesley College Social Science Summer Research and Early Sophomore Research Internship Programs; Technology and Adolescent Mental Wellness Youth Advisory Board Program, University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Research Partners and Visiting Scholars
Executive Director of Veterans Education & Research Association
Medical Editor, KidsHealth, Nemours Center for Children's Health Media
Boston Children’s Hospital, Digital Wellness Lab
Wellesley College Department of Psychology
Lisette M. DeSouza, Ph.D., is a WCW Associate Research Scientist working with scholars at the National Institute on Out-of-School Time (NIOST). Her roles in the lab include methodological consultation and examining how social technology use intersects with youth development activities.
Diane Gruber, MA, is a Research Associate specializing in Child and Youth development at the National Institute of Out-of-School Time (NIOST). She brings her expertise as a licensed mental health counselor for children and adolescence to roles in the lab as an experienced field data collector and interviewer.
Kamilah Drummond-Forrester, an expert in social and emotional learning, is collaborating with Linda Charmaraman to co-develop a middle school digital wellbeing curriculum. Kamilah brings expertise in racial equity, inclusion, and professional development support. Her approach puts students’ wellbeing at the center while meeting the needs of educators and families. Kamilah is also the former director of Open Circle, a social and emotional learning program of the Wellesley Centers for Women.
Jennifer M. Grossman, Ph.D., is a senior research scientist at the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW) specializing in adolescent development and family communication about sex and relationships. Her roles include recruitment, implementation, and dissemination of lab research activities involving parents of middle school students and how they monitor and communicate to their adolescents about social technology use.
Wellesley College Department of American Studies
Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a physician in the Departments of Medicine and Neurology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School and PI of the Developmental Risk and Resilience Laboratory at Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Alicia Doyle Lynch, PhD, Founder of Lynch Research Associates, is a Developmental Psychologist specializing in statistical and methodological approaches for studying child and adolescent development. She leads our methodology team to provide guidance in conceptualization, design, data management, analysis, and interpretation of cross-sectional and longitudinal data.
Department of Pediatrics, University of Wisconsin Madison and PI of the Social Media and Adolescent Health Research Team (SMAHRT)
Tufts Institute for Human-Animal Interaction, Tufts University
Contact
Youth, Media, & Wellbeing Research Lab
Wellesley Centers for Women
Wellesley College – CHE
106 Central Street
Wellesley, MA 02481-8203
youthmediawellbeing@wcwonline[dot]org
781 283 2486