Clara-Christina Gerstner

HIGHLIGHTED PUBLICATIONS

1. Gerstner, C.-C. E., McDermott, P. A., Weiss, E. M., Rovine, M. J., Worrell, F. C., & Hall, T. E. (2024). Latent profiles of home behaviour problems in Trinidad and Tobago. International Journal of Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1002/ijop.13261
2. Weiss, E. M., Gerstner, C.-C. E., McDermott, P. A., & Rovine, M. J. (2023). Latent trajectories of learning- and teacher-context behavior problems across the primary-school transition. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 86. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2023.101538
3. Gerstner, C.-C. E., McDermott, P. A., Weiss, E. M., Rovine, M. J., Worrell, F. C., & Hall, T. E. (2022). Contextual specificity in classroom adjustment: Latent profiles of primary school behavior problems in Trinidad and Tobago. International Journal of School & Educational Psychology, 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1080/21683603.2022.2075998
4. McDermott, P. A., Rovine, M. J., Gerstner, C.-C. E., Weiss, E. M., & Watkins, M. W. (2022). Latent profile analysis of classroom behavior problems in an American national sample of prekindergarten children. Social Development, 31, 1059-1078. https://doi.org/10.1111/sode.12606
5. Allen-Platt, C., Gerstner, C.-C. E., Boruch, R., & Ruby, A. (2021). Toward a science of failure analysis: A narrative review. Review of Research in Education, 45(1), 223-252. https://doi.org/10.3102/0091732X20985074

TEACHING PHILOSOPHY

Dr. Gerstner seeks to create a student-centered classroom environment that nurtures both academic and personal growth. She emphasizes active engagement, critical thinking, and the integration of students’ own interests and life experiences into the learning process to help them develop as independent scholars. A core commitment in her teaching is supporting students who may struggle with the mathematical foundations of statistics. Her goal is to ensure that all students feel capable of mastering course materials in a statistics class and applying quantitative methods meaningfully in their fields of study.

BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Clara-Christina Gerstner is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Educational Research at The University of Alabama, where she teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in Quantitative Methods. Her research centers on promoting student and teacher well-being in K-12 schools and improving the design of educational interventions. Her current studies focus on how to promote children’s social and emotional development through school-based interventions and reduce behavior problems in the classroom. Her work spans from early childhood to secondary education and has an international scope, including research in the United States, Ghana, Trinidad and Tobago, and Morocco. As a methodologist, Gerstner investigates why educational programs often fall short of expected outcomes and how to decrease barriers to implementation. Prior to earning her Ph.D. in Quantitative Methods from the University of Pennsylvania, she worked as a secondary science teacher in Connecticut.