A. Michele Lease, Ph.D.

I currently serve as Associate Professor of EPIT at UGA, Coordinator of the APA-accredited School Psychology Program, and Co-director of the School Psychology Clinic. I also serve as an Associate Editor for School Psychology Quarterly. My research focuses on issues related to the perceived organization of children's peer groups, interdisciplinary approaches to understanding types of popular children, including the various types of influence strategies used by popular children, and children's friendships. Currently, I teach Psychoeducational Interventions with Children and Adolescents, Developmental Psychopathology, and Prevention and Remediation of Classroom Behavior Problems.

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Current and Past Graduate Students on the Research Team:

Jaclyn Wetherington
To be discovered

John Brown
To be discovered

Mary Lutz
Research Topic: impact of temperament on children’s sense of belongingness within their social clique

Lindsay Masland
Research Topic: peer influence on academic achievement motivation

Kyongboon Kwon
Dissertation (in progress): Peer nomination patterns and social identification in the context of children’s cliques in middle childhood.
Thesis (2006). Clique membership and social adjustment: The contribution of the type of clique to children’s self-reported adjustment.
Current Position: Psychology Intern, Virginia Beach City Public Schools

Justin Miller
Dissertation (2007; co-directed with P. Schwanenflugel): The development of prosodic text reading as a dimension of oral reading fluency in early elementary school children.
Thesis (2005;directed by P. Schwanenflugel): The role of complex prosody in the oral reading of young children
Current Position: Psychology Intern, Nebraska Intern Consort-University of NE Lincoln, Boystown

Colby Butzon
Dissertation (2007; co-directed with C. Halverson and R. Martin): Teacher-rated personality types in middle childhood: Prediction of peer-reported social adjustment.
Current Position: Psychology Intern, University of Tennessee Health Sciences Consortium -Memphis

Jamilia Blake
Dissertation (2003): A contextual study of gender-normative and -nonnormative aggression in middle childhood
Current Position: Assistant Professor, Texas A & M

Beth Meisinger
Dissertation (2006; co-directed with P. Schwanenflugel): The contributions of text reading fluency to reading comprehension: Normative findings and implications for the assessment of reading disabilities.
Thesis (2002; co-directed with P. Schwanenflugel): Quality of the interactions during partner reading
Current Position: Assistant Professor, University of Memphis

Amanda Dix Dyer
Dissertation (2006): Consideration of potential moderators of the relation between low social dominance and emotional adjustment: Friendship, temperament, and parent-child relationships.
Thesis (2004): Relation between social dominance and indices of maladjustment.
Current Position: Licensed psychologist in private practice, Athens GA; part-time instructor, University of Georgia

William Lindstrom
Dissertation (2005): A cross-validation of a multidimensional conceptualization of preadolescent social status.
Thesis (2003): Athletics and social status among elementary school girls.
Current Position: Psychologist, Regents Center for Learning Disorders, University of Georgia

Karen Talley Musgrove
Dissertation (2003): The clinical significance of social withdrawal.
Thesis (2001): Subtypes of social withdrawal: An examination of differences in social status, social adjustment, and peer-reported behavior.
Current Position: School Psychologist, Gwinnett County School System

Jennifer Axelrod
Dissertation (2000): Behavioral and social correlates of social dominance.