Biography
Dr. Christopher Monk uses behavioral and neuroimaging methods to examine affective and cognitive processing during adolescent development. In particular, his research focuses on how behavioral and brain-based responses vary with age in normally developing youth as well as those with or at risk for psychopathology, such as anxiety and depression. The ultimate goal of this research program is to better understand why some adolescents effectively navigate their socio-emotional environments, while others struggle and a subset experience the first onset of long-term mental disorders. His teaching interests include developmental psychology and developmental neuroscience.
Dr. Monk is a principal investigator on a $6.7 million grant to study how poverty-related adversity might affect the development of threat and reward systems in the brain, and how that developmental process might increase the risk for people to develop anxiety and depression. Specifically, the project will allow researchers to work with people often overlooked in these kinds of studies: low-income and African American participants. The study will also help researchers explore sources of resilience for people facing adversity.