Ally is a second-year graduate student in developmental psychology working with Dr. Kathy Hirsh-Pasek. She received her B.A. in Counseling Psychology from The College of Santa Fe in 2007, and then taught Montessori preschool and English as a second language in the Czech Republic, Vietnam, and the Ukraine. Under the mentorship of Dr. Margaret Friend, Ally received her M.A. in Psychology from San Diego State University in 2019, and her master’s thesis examined the quality of parent-child interaction and its impact on child expressive vocabulary in English- and Spanish-speakers. Ally’s research interests include the efficacy of and mechanisms through which guided play helps children learn, and she is especially interested in addressing this within and across cultures, languages, and socioeconomic status.