Our Team
CMHRR Leadership
CMHRR Affiliated Faculty
Brandon Scott, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Montana State University
Research Interests
Dr. Scott's research examines and separates the relations between anxiety and emotional
regulation in youth on a multi-level analysis, including psychosocially and physiologically.
His research questions aim to explore the ways the relationship changes over childhood
and adolescent development, how different individual and environmental factors influence
the relation, and how emotion regulation mechanisms related to anxiety affect health
outcomes.
Website: http://www.montana.edu/psychology/directory/1812074/brandon-scott
Frances Lefcort, PhD
Professor, Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience, Montana State University
Research Interests
Dr. Lefcort is working to understand the cellular and molecular mechanisms that drive the formation of the nervous system, and how disruptions in these pathways can lead to neural developmental disorders. The major focus of her group's work is the human hereditary sensory and autonomic neuropathy disorder, Familial Dysautonomia (FD), using various models. FD is a fatal, developmental and progressive neurogenetic disorder and affects both the central and peripheral nervous systems. Their goal is to determine the function of the gene Ikbkap, which is mutated in the human disorder, and to identify potential therapeutics to treat the progressive visual impairment in FD.
Website: http://www.montana.edu/cbn/faculty-staff/lefcort.html
Mark Schure, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of Health and Human Development, Montana State University
Research Interests
Dr. Schure is engaged in developing and promoting mental health interventions tailored
to meet the needs of rural communities and populations at-risk for poor mental health
outcomes. He specializes in community-based research and has worked in several Montana
and Oregon rural communities for over a decade. Currently, he is conducting research
on the effects of a digital cognitive behavior therapy program for rural Montanans.
He is also developing and testing a specialized chronic illness management program
that addresses mental health issues related to historical trauma among the Apsaalooke
nation in Montana.
Website: http://www.montana.edu/hhd/facultyandstaff/mschure.html
Cara Palmer, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Montana State University
Research Interests 
Dr. Cara Palmer is the director of the Sleep and Development Lab. Prior to coming to MSU, Dr. Palmer completed her Ph.D. in Life-Span Developmental Psychology at West Virginia University in 2014, and a postdoctoral research fellowship in Clinical Child Psychology at the University of Houston. Dr. Palmer then served as research faculty at the University of Houston within the Department of Psychology and the Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics. Dr. Palmer joined the MSU faculty as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology in 2018.
Dr. Palmer's research is interdisciplinary, and incorporates methodology and theory from developmental psychology, clinical child psychology, social psychology, and behavioral sleep medicine. Research in the lab includes multiple methods to assess daytime emotional and social experiences (e.g., behavioral paradigms, psychophysiological and neural responses, ecological momentary assessment) and to assess sleep (EEG-based polysomnography, actigraphy).
Website: http://msusleeplab.org/