Alumni Professor
Office: 260 Spidle Hall
Phone: (334) 844-3294
elshemm@auburn.edu
Ph.D., West Virginia University, 1989

Research Interests
My ongoing research, which is supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station (AAES) focuses on associations among family risk and child outcomes in psychological adjustment, physical health, cognitive functioning, and academic performance domains. The mechanisms and variables that can either exacerbate or attenuate risk are very poorly understood, especially the role of physiological and biological regulation. In my area of inquiry, consistent with the model of the developmental psychopathology approach, there is a need for research to move beyond "first generation" research that attempts to establish associations between risk and outcome variables, to examine the processes and mechanisms that may explain differential outcomes, consistent with a "second generation" approach.
Collectively, my research has emphasized a biopsychosocial approach for the development of adjustment, social, cognitive, and physical health problems in the context of family risk, especially the role of physiological and biological regulation. Specifically, child functioning is best predicted by examining interactions between the family environment and child. There have been few investigations of interactions between social and psychophysiological factors in the prediction of child outcomes, and such studies are needed to shed light on the complex nature of the interplay among variables leading to various child developmental trajectories. Such knowledge is imperative for understanding associations between exposure to familial risk and child development, and is critical for effective and efficient prevention and intervention efforts that are so important due to the high prevalence of these risk factors in the population. A recognized feature of my research is its multi- and inter-disciplinary nature, and my research has received attention for building bridges across several disciplines concerned with child health including child development, developmental psychopathology, pediatric sleep medicine, and the study of multiple domains of biological and physiological regulation.
My research program focuses on examinations of children's emotional expression and physiological reactivity examined through sympathetic arousal, and regulation, with a focus on the activity of the parasympathetic nervous system, but including several affective, behavioral, cognitive, and coping strategies, as pathways and moderators of associations between family risk and child functioning cross-sectionally and longitudinally. My studies have focused on multiple familial risk factors for children development of psychopathology, including parental alcoholism, parental depression, parent-child conflict, marital conflict and violence, insecure child-parent attachments, and disrupted parenting practices. In recent years, my research has expanded to include sleep regulation, immune system functioning, and cortisol reactivity. The focus is on elucidating the effects of family processes on multiple child outcomes, including also examining how these child functioning variables (e.g., sleep problems) can mediate or exacerbate the risk for child problems in the context of family risk.

Selected Publications

Monograph:

El-Sheikh, M., Kouros, C. D., Erath, S., Cummings, E. M., Keller, P., & Staton, L. (2009).

Marital conflict and children's externalizing behavior: Interactions between parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system activity. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 74(1, Serial No. 292).

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