Melissa is a second-year Ph.D. student in clinical psychology. Her research focuses on the association between peer experiences and comorbid externalizing and internalizing problems in school-aged children. Specifically, she is interested in studying (a) whether comorbid internalizing and externalizing problems can be explained by the symptom accumulation model (i.e. whether an initial presentation of externalizing problems leads to internalizing problems at a later time); (b) whether this relationship is mediated by the degree to which children with externalizing problems are rejected or accepted by their peers; and (c) whether this mediating model varies by SES.