Shanta Burrell, B.S.

Shanta Burrell serves as the Project Coordinator for the Center for Youth Development and Intervention. She has over 13 years of experience in managing several research grants related to child aggression and parent mental health. 

​ In her current position, she is responsible for supervising multiple research assistants, collaborating with community partners, and overseeing day-to-day research activities. She has a bachelor’s degree in Human Development and Family Studies from the University of Alabama.

Shane Jones, M.S.W.

Shannon Jones is currently the Program Manager for the Center for Youth Development and Intervention at the UA.  Prior to this position, Shannon served as project coordinator for the Coping Power Program under Dr. John Lochman.  Shannon has worked for the University for 16 years and has extensive experience in delivering preventive interventions to at-risk children in the late elementary school and early middle school years.  He has a bachelor’s degree in Biology, a second bachelor’s degree in Psychology and a Master’s of Social Work from UA.

Lixin Qu, M.S.

Information coming soon.

Anna-Lisa Pflaum, B.S.

Anna-Lisa is a graduate research assistant for the CYDI. Before coming to UA, Anna-Lisa earned her B.S. in psychology from Furman University and worked as a Furman University Summer Research Fellow. Anna-Lisa plans to pursue a future career in psychology by applying to clinical psychology PhD programs in hopes of working with children and adolescents in clinical settings.

Amaya McClain, B.A.

Amaya is the Project Coordinator working on the STEPS study. She is the main point of contact regarding enrollment into the study. She also works as an independent evaluator (IE) for the HEARTS study. For a bit of background information on Amaya, she earned her Bachelors of Arts from the University of Alabama and hopes to attend graduate school in the future to further her career in working with autistic adults. ​

Z'Merra Scott, B.S.

Z'Merra is a Project Coordinator at CYDI. She oversees center public relations (e.g. marketing, social media, website, newsletter), community engagement and outreach. For some background on Z'Merra, she earned her Bachelor's of Science in Human Development and Family Studies from the University of Alabama and hopes to attend graduate school to further her career in working with adolescents and youth in a clinical setting. 

Past Center Staff

Jennifer Dailey, M.S.W.

Jennifer graduated from the University of Alabama in 2010 with a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and again in 2013 with a Master’s degree in Social Work.  She joined the Center as a research assistant in 2014. 

​As a research assistant, Jennifer performed a variety of tasks to support research projects at the center, including leading and co-leading child and parent intervention groups, recruiting for new projects, facilitating retention of research participants, collecting data from schools and families, and overseeing student workers.