Hannah White

Hannah White is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at the University of Missouri–St. Louis (UMSL), where she joined the Behavioral Neuroscience faculty in 2020. Her research employs an interdisciplinary approach combining behavioral, physiological, and survey methodologies to study cognitive and social development across the lifespan.

Education:

• University of Kentucky (Undergraduate and Doctoral Training)

Dr. White’s research focuses on three interconnected areas: (1) Social Development – examining infants’ sensitivity to socially relevant cues like emotions and gender differences in social processing; (2) Cognitive Development – investigating fixation duration as a metric for cognitive development and infants’ adherence to behavioral economics principles; and (3) Contextual Influences – analyzing how physiological factors (e.g., cortisol) and environmental contexts (e.g., home stability) shape developmental outcomes.

Her recent publications (2024–2020) span topics including ADHD diagnosis criteria, infant attentional patterns, emotion perception, stress physiology, and behavioral economics. These works emphasize cross-generational comparisons, interdisciplinary methodologies, and contextual predictors of cognitive development.