Olivia E. Atherton, PhD
Dr. Atherton is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Houston. Before joining UH, she completed a post-doctoral fellowship in the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University. She received her PhD in Social-Personality Psychology at the University of California Davis, and her BS in Psychology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Atherton’s research program lies at the intersection of social-personality, health, and developmental psychology. The central focus of her work is self-regulation– what is it, how does it develop, and what are its implications for mental and physical health across the lifespan? To answer these questions, she typically uses large longitudinal studies with data spanning multiple developmental periods (i.e., childhood through old age) and generations (i.e., family studies), in combination with diverse samples and multi-method measurement (e.g., self- and informant-reports, administrative records). Dr. Atherton also has expertise in various statistical techniques including coordinated data analysis, structural equation modeling, and multilevel modeling.
PERCH LAB 