Emily C. Marcinowski

Assistant Professor

Bachelor's Degree(s): BA, Psychology, University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Master's Degree: MA, Developmental Psychology, University of North Carolina at Greensboro

PhD: PhD, Developmental Psychology, University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Postdoctoral: Postdoctoral Fellowship, Physical Therapy, Virginia Commonwealth University

Phone: 225-578-5960

Email: [email protected]

Office: 2212 HPL Field House

Curriculum Vitae

Biography

Emily Marcinowski is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Kinesiology. She holds a doctorate in Developmental Psychology and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Virginia Commonwealth University in Physical Therapy. 

Dr. Marcinowski’s research interests primarily center on how motor skills and asymmetries affect the development of play, language, and cognition in early childhood, particularly in children younger than 2 years. Specific projects include the impact of emerging independent sitting and locomotion on manipulative play, hand preferences on the development of object construction and language, and how parents support motor development in their infants. She also has interest in finding unique methods for studying and understanding development, including discovering new ways to describe temporal change besides age. Dr. Marcinowski is the director of the Understanding Play Lab. 

Dr. Marcinowski has lectured on lifespan motor development, research methods, and introduction to statistics. Her teaching interests include motor development, motor learning, and longitudinal data analysis with a particular passion for educating international students and first-generation students. 

Selected Publications

Marcinowski, E.C., Nelson, E. C., Campbell, J. M., & Michel, G. F. (2023). Early, concurrent, and consistent hand preferences predict stacking in toddlerhood. Developmental Psychobiology, 65(5), e22397.

Kretch, K. S., Marcinowski, E.C., Hsu, L.-Y., Koziol, N. A., Harbourne, R. T., Lobo, M. A., McCoy, S. W., Bovaird, J. A., & Dusing, S. C. (2022). Opportunities for learning and social interaction in infant sitting: Effects of sitting status, sitting skill, and gross motor delay. Developmental Science, 26(3), e13318.

Marcinowski, E.C., Tripathi, T., Hsu, L.-Y., Westcott-McCoy, S., & Dusing, S. C. (2019). Sitting skill and the emergence of arms-free sitting affects the frequency of object looking and exploration. Developmental Psychobiology. [In press] 

Marcinowski, E.C., Nelson, E. L., Campbell, J. M., & Michel, G. F. (2019). The development of object construction from infancy through toddlerhood. Infancy, 24(3), 368-391. 

Dusing, S. C., Marcinowski, E.C., Tripathi, T., Rocha, A., & Brown, S. (2018). Assessment of parent-child interaction is important with infants in rehabilitation and can use high-tech or low-tech methods. Physical Therapy Journal, 99(6), 658-665. 

Campbell, J. M., Marcinowski, E.C., & Michel, G. F. (2018). The Development of Neuromotor Skills and Hand Preference During Infancy. Developmental Psychobiology, 60(2), 165-175. 

Marcinowski, E.C. & Campbell, J. M. (2017). Building on what you have learned: Constructing skill during infancy influences the development of spatial relation words. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 41(3), 341-349. 

Marcinowski, E.C., Campbell, J. M., Faldowski, R. A., & Michel, G. F. (2016). Do hand preferences predict stacking skill during infancy? Developmental Psychobiology, 58(8), 958-967. 

Campbell, J. M., Marcinowski, E.C., Latta, J. A., & Michel, G. F. (2015). Different assessment tasks produce different estimates of handedness stability during the 8 to 14 month age period. Infant Behavior and Development, 39, 67-80. 

Michel, G. F., Marcinowski, E.C., Babik, I., Nelson, E. L., & Campbell, J. M. (2015). An Interdisciplinary Biopsychosocial Perspective on Infant Development. In S. Calkins (Ed.) Handbook of Infant Development: A Biopsychosocial Perspective, 427-446.

Selected Presentations

Marcinowski, E.C., Nelson, E. L., Campbell, J. M., & Lockman, J. (2022). Cascades of Manual Exploration onto Language Outcomes. Symposium presented at the International Conference on Infant Studies Biannual Conference, Ottawa, Canada, July 8-10, 2022.

Marcinowski, E.C., Hsu, L.-Y., Dusing, S. C., Bovaird, J., Harbourne, R. T., Lobo, M. A., Westcott McCoy, S., Koziol, N., & START-Play Consortium (2019). Sit long, talk much. Language, general motor ability, and independent sitting for infants with motor delays. Presented at the Workshop on Early Language in Neurodevelopmental Disorders, Lisbon, Portugal, November 8, 2019.

Marcinowski, E.C., Hsu, L.-Y., Westcott-McCoy, S., Dusing, S. C. (2018). Sitting skill relates to babbling during infancy. Presented at the Infant Conference for Infant Studies, Philadelphia, PA, June 29- July 3, 2018. 

Marcinowski, E.C., Tripathi, T., ‡Parson, H., & Dusing, S. C. (2017). Parent-child interaction and the Supporting Play Exploration and Early Development Intervention (SPEEDI) improve infant cognition. Presented at the Combined Sections Meeting, San Antonio, TX, February 15-18, 2017. 

Marcinowski, E.C. (2016). “How might parent-infant interactions shape motor and cognitive development in infants after the NICU?” Presented at the 2016 Evelyn Reed Symposium on Early Childhood Research and Practice, Richmond, VA, June 11, 2016. 

Marcinowski, E.C., Campbell, J. M., & Michel, G. F. (2015). “Does infant handedness trajectory affect stacking ability?” Presented as a part of a peer-reviewed paper submission at the 48th Annual Meeting for Developmental Psychobiology, San Sebastian, Spain, July 20-23, 2015.

Selected Grants/Funded Projects

2017-2018 Principal Investigator, Postdoctoral Career Development Fund. ($5,000)
PI: Emily Marcinowski
Title: How does parent-child interaction affect the development of object construction during infancy? 

2016-2019 Statistical consult, American Physical Therapy Association, Academy of Pediatric Physical Therapy Mentored Research grant ($9,973.95)
PIs: Christina Withers, Stacey Dusing
Title: “Does participating in a supervised fitness program extend the benefits of episodic physical therapy more than a home exercise program for adults with cerebral palsy?” 

2016-2017 Co-Principal Investigator, Children’s Hospital Foundation Research Fund ($7,500)
Co-PIs: Stacey Dusing, Emily Marcinowski
Title: “Relationship between motor, cognitive and language skills in typically developing infants: An extension of the START-Play clinical trial”

Awards

Gayle G. Arnold Award for the Best Scientific Paper (coauthor)

Other

For Fall 2024, Dr. Marcinowski is recruiting a graduate student into her lab in the Department of Kinesiology. Please contact her for any questions or introductions.