Sarah Giff is a doctoral student at George Mason University’s (GMU) Clinical Psychology program. Prior to graduate school, Sarah earned a B.A. in Psychology and a B.A. in History at Villanova University, where she volunteered in research labs related to child development, social psychology, and post-traumatic stress disorder. After college,  Sarah was a research assistant at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Center for Autism Research, and a Psychology Technician at the VA Medical Center in Philadelphia, PA.
Currently, Sarah works in Dr. Keith Renshaw’s Anxiety, Stress, and Relationships Lab at GMU. She is interested how trauma and extreme stress impact romantic, parent-child, and other types of close relationships, and the developmental processes of children growing up with a parent who has experienced trauma. Sarah was awarded a NIH pre-doctoral fellowship to conduct her dissertation study, which explores how trauma may relate to emotion socialization processes in military families after a deployment. When she is not working, Sarah enjoys baking, true crime podcasts, and trying to keep up with her puppy, Bailey.