Sonia Alves is a fifth year doctoral student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education with a concentration in human development and education. Her research interest includes understanding the longitudinal association between community violence exposure and youth academic outcomes. Sonia is interested in identifying mechanisms that link community violence exposure to academic functioning, with a focus on emotion dysregulation and inattention as potential mechanisms and understanding the ways in which the school context, such as school climate and connectedness, can buffer the negative consequences of community violence exposure on academic functioning. And additionally, she is curious about learning how developing coping skills and strategies for managing stressful experiences can influence positive developmental outcomes and academic success in youth.
