Stefania Vacaru

I focus on infants’ psychobiological and behavioural response to their first months in day-care. In my research I focus on early development in healthy populations from a psychosocial and biological perspective. My research interests span from parent-child interactions within the attachment theory framework to later socioemotional and cognitive development. In my doctoral work I delved into the emergence of affiliative behaviors such as facial mimicry in young children. As such, I investigated the role of early attachment relationships as well as cognitive and empathic processes in the ontogeny and modulation of social mimicry. At the moment, I investigate the early caregiving environment in relation to maternal stress and its links to infant developmental outcomes. Moreover, I am currently focusing on the effects of biobehavioral synchrony on cognitive development.

E-mail: stefania.vacaru@radboudumc.nl