Jimena Cosso is an Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology at Penn State. 

Jimena’s overarching research program explores learning contexts that shape how young children develop and learn, with a particular focus on dual language learners (DLLs) from immigrant Latine communities. Latine families bring immense linguistic and cultural assets to schools and communities, yet Latine children are considered among the most vulnerable of young learners. Disparities in learning outcomes, however, rest within structural factors such as cultural and linguistic biases in our knowledge base and the reliance on measures that are not culturally or linguistically sensitive but commonly used to make instructional and policy decisions. 

Jimena's research program addresses these main issues through two main strands: (a) culturally sensitive measures and (b) contextual factors shaping early learning, with a specific interest in early mathematics skills.

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Almendra Mendizabal is a first-year Ph.D. student in Educational Psychology at Penn State. 

She earned a B.S. in Secondary Education from Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile in 2021 and taught natural science in English to bilingual school children in her hometown of Santiago.

Almendra is interested in how the home environment affects the early mathematical and science process skills of preschool-aged dual language learning children in the context of immigrant Latine families.

Besides work, in her free time, you can always find Almendra in coffee shops - reading novels, poetry, and scientific literature from Sylvia Plath to Francisco Varela.

Paola del Campo Andrade is a first-year Ph.D. student in Educational Psychology at Penn State. 

She earned her B.S. in Physical Therapy at Universidad Metropolitana de la Educación in 2016 and a M.Sc. in Neurosciences Applied to Education at Universidad Mayor in 2023. For five years, she utilized her passions for biology and social change to teach science to young children in underserved urban communities. 

Paola specializes in the relationship between executive functions and science literacy during child development. She is interested in improving science educational learning in students from marginalized communities.

Annalise Chang is a third-year undergraduate student majoring in psychology and statistics.

Her research interests include early childhood development, learning processes, and quantitative methods. Alongside working with Dr. Cosso, Annalise studies emotion regulation in Dr. Pamela Cole's lab at Penn State. She plans to attend graduate school for measurement or statistics.

Gala Campos Oaxaca is a doctoral candidate in Educational Psychology. She was born and raised in Veracruz, Mexico, and earned her undergraduate degree in Psychology and Biomedical Science at Dordt University in Sioux Center, IA. Before Penn State, Gala worked at a psychiatric residential treatment facility in Asheville, NC. 

Gala's main area of research focuses on studying the sociocultural and cognitive processes involved in discourse synthesis and academic writing at the higher education level. In particular, Gala is interested in exploring the power dynamics and resources available to support academic writing communities

International Comparisons of the Home Mathematics Environment and Relations with Children's Mathematical Achievement

Ellis, A., Cosso, J., Duncan, R., Susperreguy, M. I., Simms, V., & Purpura, D.

The Home Numeracy Environment and Children’s Early Math Skills: The Moderating Role of Parents’ Math Anxiety. 

Cosso, J., Finders, J. K., Duncan, R. J., Schmitt, S. A., & Purpura, D. J. 

Unique and Combined Effects of Mathematical Language and Numeracy Instruction: A Picture Book Intervention

Purpura, D. K., O’Real, C., Ellis A., Logan, J. A. R., King Y., Westerberg, L., Cosso, J., Zippert E., Napoli, A. R., Hornburg, C. B., Schmitt, S. A., & Dobbs-Oates, J. 

The Home Mathematics Environment of Dual-Language Learning Children and Their Early Mathematics Skills.

Cosso, J., Purpura, D. J., Maeda, Y., & Bofferding, L.

Effects of Parental Involvement Programs on Young Children’s Academic and Social-Emotional Outcomes: a Meta-Analysis.

Cosso, J., von Suchodoletz, A., & Yoshikawa, H. 

Impact of a Psycho-Emotional Skills-Building Program on Children's Social-Emotional Development in Colombia

Cosso, J., Russo de Vivo, A.R., Hein, S., Reales-Silvera, L. P., Ramirez-Verela, L., & Ponguta, L. A. 

Conceptualizing the Factor Structure of Parents’ Math Anxiety and Associations with Children’s Mathematics Skills

Cosso, J., Ellis, A., O’Real, C., Zippert E., Schmitt S., & Purpura D. J.

Relations between Students’ Mathematics Anxiety and Motivation to Learn Mathematics: a Meta-Analysis

Li, Q., Cho, H., Cosso, J., & Maeda, Y. 

Next Directions in Measurement of the Home Mathematics Environment: An International and Interdisciplinary Perspective.

Hornburg, C. B., Borriello, G.A., Kung, M., Lin, J., Litkowski, E., Cosso, J., Ellis, A., King, Y., Zippert, E., Cabrera, N., Davis-Kean, P., Eason, S. H., Hart, S. A., Iruka, I., LeFevre, J.-A., Simms, V., Susperreguy, M. I., Cahoon, A., Chan, W. W. L., Cheung, S. K., Coppola, M., De Smedt, B., Elliot, L., Estévez-Pérez, N., Gallagher-Mitchell, T., Gardner-Neblett, N., Gilmore, C., Leyva, D., Maloney, E. A., Manolitsis, G., Melzi, G., Mutaf-Yıldız, B., Nelson, G., Niklas, G., Pan, Y., Ramani, G. B., Skwarchuk, S.-L., Sonnenschein, S., & Purpura, D. J.