Dr. Lauren Davis is an Associate Professor of Curriculum and Instruction and Head of the Education Department for Montana State University and former education department chair and director for the Neff Center for Teacher Education at Emory and Henry College in Emory, Virginia. Prior to her work in higher education, Dr. Davis was a middle school teacher and building-level administrator in North Carolina. She earned her bachelor’s degree in elementary education, her master’s degree in middle grades education (both at Appalachian State University), and her doctoral degree in educational leadership and policy analysis at East Tennessee State University. Her research interests revolve around middle-level and high-school students and how trauma and poverty impact student achievement, especially in rural contexts.
Dr. Brandon Scott is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Montana State University. He received his B.A. in Psychology from Texas Tech University in 2005 and obtained his M.A. in General Psychology (Clinical Emphasis) from Stephen F. Austin State University in 2008. He completed his doctorate training in Applied Developmental Psychology at the University of New Orleans under the mentorship of Dr. Carl Weems. Dr. Scott spent two years (2013-2015) as an NIMH T32 post-doctoral fellow at the ASU REACH Institute (formerly known as the Prevention Research Center) before coming to MSU. His program of research is largely informed by models of resilience and risk, and his research blends traditional methodology with culturally responsive science frameworks. He has consistently contributed to psychological science in general by elucidating the influence of biological, emotional, and cognitive processes in the development of internalizing and post-traumatic stress disorder development in children and adolescents. Specifically, his expertise in physiological indices of self-regulation (e.g., heart rate variability), emotion regulation, and control beliefs has allowed him to uncover knowledge relevant to anxiety and depressive disorder development, maintenance, and reversal.
