Visiting Assistant Professor Hilal Kuscul and Associate Professor Kari Adamsons received the 2023 Best New Professional Research Article Award from the National Council on Family Relations and the Men in Families Focus Group Award Review Committee for their paper, A Personal and Relational Model of Father Identity Construction, published in the Journal of Family Theory & Review.
Associate Professor Ryan Watson was quoted in an article about schools banning LGBTQ+ subjects in school. Read the article here.
Professor Marlene Schwartz was featured in UConn Today for her role as a co-investigator on a newly funded project from the CT Department of Public Health to study how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected obesity-related dietary behaviors and weight outcomes. Read the article here.
Graduate student Nathaniel Stekler received the National Council on Family Relations (NCFR) and the Family Policy Section’s 2023 Feldman Best Conference Proposal Award for a Student.
Congratulations to Associate Professor Laura Donorfio, newly elected Vice Chair-Elect for the Academy of Gerontology in Higher Education, the educational arm of the Gerontological Society of America. This position is a huge honor and we know that Laura, with her skill and passion for teaching about aging, is the perfect person for this role.
Professor Rebecca Puhl was featured in an article in Axios about weight stigma in the workplace. Read the article here.
Jessica graduated Magna Cum Laude from UConn in 2012 with a B.A. double major in HDFS and Sociology. While studying at UConn, Jessica was involved in Community Outreach activities such as Habitat for Humanity, volunteering with the American Red Cross, serving as an active student member of the Office of Early College Programs Advisory Board, and a student employee in the UConn Early College Experience (ECE) Office. During high school, Jessica enrolled in a UConn HDFS course through the UConn ECE Program which sparked her interest in the field and provided her a head start on her degree. Not only did her experience through UConn ECE guide her to choose HDFS as a major, but it was also the foundation for her future and career in providing equitable access to higher education.
After graduating, Jessica was hired as the Registration Coordinator for UConn ECE where she developed and maintained student registration processes for over 11,000 students annually who were enrolled in UConn courses during high school. After 5 years in this role, Jessica was hired as the Assistant Director in the Office of Early College Programs and the Director of Student Enrichment for UConn ECE. Jessica continues to oversee student registration for the program and develops and implements engaging academic enrichment opportunities for high school students. Jessica is committed to promoting enrollment growth and accessibility through development of new academic opportunities and financial support to CT high schools and students in need. Jessica has presented at national conferences and to the Connecticut State Department of Education, as well as represented UConn ECE at regional conferences, high school forums, and educator workshops. Jessica is dedicated to the mission of providing access to, and preparation for, higher education. She attributes her drive and passion to her UConn HDFS background and the opportunities she was given with the UConn ECE Program.
Outside of her work at UConn, Jessica is a member of a Connecticut high school residential boarding program which serves a diverse population of teenagers from more than 17 states and 28 countries. Jessica is an on-campus dorm parent where she lives with her husband and three children. She is fortunate to be able to work with high school students in multiple capacities across her roles, and values providing direct care, support, mentorship, and most importantly an educational experience outside of the classroom to the students she lives with. Teaching students tolerance, the value of diversity, and interpersonal skills are included in the high school mission and align strongly with Jessica’s core values and goals in life.
Lindsay joined UConn’s HDFS department in 2015 after graduating with her bachelor’s degree in psychology from Gettysburg College. For much of her graduate career, she worked with Dr. Preston Britner on the evaluation team of the Connecticut site of a federal demonstration project called Partnerships to Demonstrate the Effectiveness of Supportive Housing for Families in the Child Welfare System. There she worked with the Connecticut nonprofit service provider, The Connection Inc. (TCI), to assess whether a more intensive supportive housing program provided value-added to families involved in the child welfare system. She also wrote reports on topics such as the benefits of a scattered-site housing approach and peer mentoring for child welfare-involved families. Lindsay’s dissertation work was an extension of what she learned throughout this experience. In her dissertation, she used 20+ years of Department of Children and Families (DCF) data on families who have been involved in TCI’s supportive housing program to assess long-term child welfare outcomes for these families. Lindsay successfully defended her dissertation on July 28th, 2023 and will officially graduate this month.
Lindsay’s involvement with evaluation research and exposure to the nonprofit sector sparked an interest that she wanted to explore further. As a result, she pursued two graduate certificates at UConn – one in Program Evaluation and one in Nonprofit Management. Lindsay enjoyed both of these experiences which, in turn, solidified her interest in pursuing a career in which she could combine her background in HDFS with program evaluation and the nonprofit sector.
In October of 2021, Lindsay found a position that would allow her to do just that. She is now the Evaluation Manager at The Home for Little Wanderers in Massachusetts. The Home is the oldest child welfare agency in the U.S. and provides services to children and young adults including foster care and adoption services, behavioral health services, group homes, special education schools, and residential programs for transition age youth. In her new position, Lindsay has learned a great deal about The Home’s approach to practice including trauma-informed care, restorative practices, and achieving permanency for youth. Some of Lindsay’s responsibilities include managing a follow-up project where families are interviewed about youths’ well-being after discharge from The Home’s services, quarterly data reporting, helping programs remain compliant with funders’ reporting requirements, and developing new evaluation strategies to assess how effectively The Home carries out best-practices in their work.
Sarah McKee graduated from the HDFS doctoral program in May 2023. She joined the graduate program in 2017, earning her master’s degree in 2019. During her training, Sarah worked with Dr. Marlene Schwartz on several research projects studying child nutrition, school wellness, and food insecurity. Specifically, she worked on research examining nutrition and physical activity policy implementation in childcare centers, a program to promote nutritious food choices at food pantries, and Connecticut schools’ distribution of meals during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sarah and Dr. Schwartz also worked with state departments of education, examining efforts to improve local school wellness policies in Kansas and providing technical assistance for wellness policy assessment to Connecticut school districts. Additionally, they collaborate with Dr. Sandra Chafouleas in the Neag School of Education to promote the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) model of school health.
Sarah successfully defended her dissertation in April on implementing local school wellness policies. She applied qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods to examine various factors influencing schools’ successful implementation of policies that support students’ well-being. In her research, she identified barriers to wellness policy implementation and highlighted strategies that school staff have used to overcome these obstacles.
In addition to conducting research, Sarah taught undergraduate students in Comparative Family Policy for three semesters, was a teaching assistant for Individual and Family Development, and was a graduate assistant for the HDFS College Career Pathways Program and the Honors Program.
Sarah is now a postdoctoral research associate at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Health, where she continues to work with Dr. Schwartz. Her current focus is studying and supporting schools in improving their wellness policies and practices and serving summer meals to students. Outside work, Sarah enjoys creating nail art, listening to her vinyl record collection, attending concerts, hiking, and exploring New England with her friends and family.
Dr. Marketa Burnett is a developmental psychologist who joined UConn as an assistant professor of HDFS and Africana Studies in August 2023. Through her work she strives to disrupt deficit-based narratives of Black girls and Black families and instead center their strengths, resilience, and resistance. Marketa is a proud native of Greensboro, North Carolina– a city rich in Black history and tradition. On February 1, 1960, the Greensboro Four sparked a nationwide sit-in movement at Woolworth’s lunch counter. Today, it is home to the International Civil Rights Center and Museum.
In 2017, she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology & African, African American, and Diaspora Studies from UNC Chapel Hill. She credits her time as a Ronald E. McNair scholar for introducing her to the many opportunities available to make meaningful social change through research. She would go on to complete her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology at UNC Chapel Hill. With support from the Ford Foundation, she launched the I PERSIST Project (Identifying Predictors of Engagement, Resilience, Socialization, and Identity in STem). In this project, she interviewed both caregivers and adolescent Black girls to examine the developmental mechanisms that influence Black girls’ STEM identity and persistence over time. Marketa continued her training at the University of South Carolina as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow where she investigated how religious coping factors might shape identity development and well-being among Black families.
Currently, Marketa investigates the psychological and contextual factors that shape Black girls’ identity development and their educational trajectories. In addition, she explores the ways Black family processes (e.g., socialization) mitigate the effects of educational inequality and promote resilience and resistance among Black youth. Marketa sees her research as storytelling. She intentionally partners with Black youth and families in the co-construction of knowledge to accurately represent their stories and center their ideas and solutions.
Outside of work, Marketa enjoys watching game shows (especially Jeopardy!), buying more books than she has time to read, visiting local wineries, and trying out new recipes in the kitchen.