Professor Marlene Schwartz was featured in a TalkZone episode titled, “Constitutional Rights & Dubious Health Advice”. Listen to the audio episode here.
Author: Janice Berriault
Keith Bellizzi guest speaker on NIH Inside Cancer Careers podcast
Professor Keith Bellizzi was a guest speaker on the National Cancer Institutes Podcast “Inside Cancer Careers” (Episode 14). Inside Cancer Careers is a podcast that explores and illuminates the exciting world of cancer research training to bring a new generation of investigators into the field. Listen to the podcast here.
Audrey Boucher, HDFS Undergraduate Spotlight, November 2023
Audrey Boucher is a UConn junior majoring in HDFS. She is from Newton, Massachusetts and is very passionate about the UConn HDFS program. Audrey is very driven and motivated about working with others.
Audrey currently serves as the treasurer of the Family Sciences Undergraduate Council and is excited to be a part of a very thoughtful group of students with similar career interests and goals. In Fall 2022, she was a UConn First Year Experience (FYE) Mentor. In this role, she led a weekly class with first year students and provided students with resources. Her goal was to make each student feel welcome and comfortable as a new Husky! Audrey hopes to study abroad in Italy in Spring 2024 as an opportunity to take classes and immerse herself in a new culture. After graduation, Audrey is interested in pursuing a career in marriage and family therapy. She hopes to complete her masters in Social Work at UConn or find a program in the Boston area.
Audrey is really excited to see what the future holds. In her free time, Audrey enjoys spending time with her family and friends, going to Cape Cod to spend countless hours on the beach, and speaking/learning Italian. She is also a huge Boston Bruins fan. You also can always find her with a strong cup of coffee in her hand!
Sara K. Johnson, HDFS Alumni Spotlight, November 2023
Sara K. Johnson received a Master’s in HDFS from UConn in 2008; in 2012 she received her Ph.D. in HDFS as well as a Graduate Certificate in College Instruction and a Certificate in Quantitative Research Methods. She was drawn to the program because of its individualized nature, reflected in the variety of experiences she had during her time at UConn. For instance, she served as the Editorial Assistant for the Journal of Primary Prevention (now the Journal of Prevention), a graduate research assistant at Center for Applied Research in Human Development, a teaching assistant for the HDFS Undergraduate Honors Program, and an instructor of record for several courses. For her dissertation research, she partnered with UConn’s Office of Community Outreach to conduct a study of how service-learning experiences might promote undergraduate students’ civic attitudes and identity development.
After graduating, Sara became a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute of Applied Research in Youth Development at Tufts University under the mentorship of Dr. Richard Lerner. She was promoted to Research Assistant Professor in 2013 and held that position until 2016, when she began a new position at Tufts as Assistant Professor in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development. Sara received tenure and promotion to Associate Professor in July 2023. Since 2021, she has also served as the Director of Graduate Studies in her department, where she oversees both the Master’s and Doctoral Programs.
Sara’s research group is called the Development of Identity and Community Engagement (DICE) Lab. At DICE, she works with undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral level research assistants to continue pursuing the interests she developed while at UConn. As an applied developmental scientist and methodologist, her research emphasizes understanding how young people become involved in the world beyond themselves and how to research these processes in ways that promote equity and methodological rigor. Her substantive scholarship considers variation in how young people think about contribution and in what they do, and shows how different individual and contextual factors relate to these ideologies and actions. Sara’s methodological work includes developing new measurement techniques and illustrating how to identify subgroups of participants within a dataset. Finally, her work addresses the systemically unequal and inequitable contexts in which young people live by investigating how we can measure and promote young people’s involvement in equity-focused contribution.
Sara is an active member of several professional societies, including the International Society for Research on Identity (where she served as Conference Committee Chair from 2017 to 2021) and the Society for Research on Adolescence. She serves on the editorial boards of several journals (including the Journal of Research on Adolescence and the Journal of Youth and Adolescence), as a Statistical Consulting Editor for Child Development, and as Associate Editor of the Methods and Measures section of Applied Developmental Science.
Sara and her husband live in Somerville, Massachusetts. They are temporarily cat-less but plan to adopt two new feline family members soon. In their spare time, they enjoy reading on their porch, exploring the natural environment around their neighborhood, and traveling.
Delaina Carlson, HDFS Graduate Student Spotlight, November 2023
Delaina Carlson is a first-year Ph.D. student working with Dr. Rachel Chazan Cohen. Originally from Pennsylvania, she earned her bachelor’s degree in Applied Developmental Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh. During this time, through research, internships, and work experience, she gained a love of working with infants and toddlers, along with their families. Over time, she has gained experience in child care, child care management, home visiting, early intervention, community organization, and research.
Most recently, Delaina worked for Dartmouth College in the Media and Health Behaviors Laboratory. Here she developed an interest in public health/nutrition messaging, mindfulness, and children’s media and health behaviors, including sleep, physical activity, and eating behaviors.
Her career has taken a winding path, but her ongoing mission is to support children and families. She hopes her experiences working with a variety of families across multiple settings will inform her future research. Specifically, she seeks to better understand individual and environmental factors that influence child development, family functioning, and health and wellness. Additionally, she plans to study the existing systems that support families, including child care, home visiting, and other interventions.
When not working, Delaina prefers to be outside with her husband. She loves to travel, hike, ski, garden, mountain bike, and rock climb. When inside, Delaina enjoys picking up new hobbies, whether it’s pottery, board games, or yoga.
Anne Berset, HDFS Graduate Student Spotlight, November 2023
Anne Berset is a first year Ph.D. student working with Dr. Preston Britner. Anne is originally from Northern Virginia just outside of Washington D.C. She attended the University of Denver for her undergraduate degree, where she worked as a research assistant in the Child Health and Development lab with Dr. Sarah Enos Watamura. Anne’s first experiences in the lab were on a project led by Dr. Watamura and her graduate student, Elly Miles, examining risk and protective factors for Iraqi and Syrian refugee caregivers who had resettled in the Denver area. During her time at University of Denver, Anne received several research grants to conduct a mixed-methods study examining a parent psychoeducational program designed to help parents manage stress and trauma. Anne then completed her senior thesis using cross-sectional data from the Buffering Environmental Stress Together (BEST) project in Dr. Watamura’s lab. In her thesis she examined the role of social support in mental health among diverse Early Head Start families who had experienced adversity. This work differentiated between informal support (i.e., friends, family) and formal support (i.e., government aid) to understand which type of support was associated with reduced depression and anxiety in caregivers following a history of childhood adversity. In addition to her research activities, Anne worked as a tutor in the Learning Effectiveness Program at the University of Denver, where she tutored undergraduate and graduate students with neurodevelopmental disabilities in Psychology and English.
After graduating from the University of Denver, Anne moved to Cincinnati, OH where she worked as a Clinical Research Coordinator with Dr. Bill Brinkman at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. While in this role, Anne gained experience working with clinical populations in community and school-based settings by serving as the lead coordinator on several NIH-funded randomized controlled trials. Some of the projects she managed examined parent and adolescent decision-making about ADHD treatment and management as well as genomic testing.
Anne’s interest in working with adversity-exposed populations and designing accessible community-based interventions led her to the UConn HDFS program, where she hopes to continue researching the biopsychosocial consequences of trauma among minoritized groups and developing interventions that improve mental health outcomes. Anne is working with Dr. Preston Britner on a project examining higher-education outcomes among youth with a history of foster care. She is also a graduate research assistant on projects with Dr. Kevin Ferreira van Leer and Dr. Beth Russell.
When she’s not in school, Anne spends her time hanging out with her three cats (Tuxedo, Mione, and Sonny). Anne loves to read, hike, and watch dystopian and sci-fi movies. You will likely find her playing pool at a billiards hall when she’s not studying.
Raymond Moody, HDFS Faculty Spotlight, November 2023
Raymond Moody is a clinical psychologist with expertise in syndemic approaches to health where multiple epidemics stemming from social inequities and environmental hardships interact to increase the burden of disease. His research broadly seeks to identify biopsychosocial determinants of sexual minority health and develop interventions that address vulnerabilities and promote resilience to reduce health disparities in this population. His research has focused on understanding the impact of intersecting stigmas on substance use and sexual health behaviors and the influence of emotion regulation on these health outcomes.
Ray grew up in Arizona and attended the University of Arizona, where he received a B.A. in Psychology with a minor in Human Development and Family Sciences (HDFS). The foundation of his research interests was heavily influenced by his experience as an undergraduate research assistant and then lab coordinator for Dr. Stephen Russell, conducting research on sexual and gender minority health disparities, in addition to his experience as an intake coordinator for a residential drug and alcohol treatment center. He completed his Ph.D. in the Health Psychology and Clinical Science doctoral program at the City University of New York, including a year-long clinical internship at The Ohio State University. He then completed a three-year postdoctoral fellowship in the NIDA-funded T32 Substance Abuse Epidemiology Training Program at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.
Ray joined the UConn HDFS department as an Assistant Professor in August 2023. He currently teaches an undergraduate course on Individual and Family Development, HDFS 1070. He serves as the faculty advisor to the Council on Family Relations at UConn. He is on the editorial board for the Annals of Behavioral Medicine and Translational Behavioral Medicine journals of the Society of Behavioral Medicine. His research has been supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, including an R36 dissertation grant, a Loan Repayment Award, a T32 fellowship, and participation in the NIDA Diversity Scholar’s Network. Additionally, he is a current fellow in the NIDA-funded Enhanced Interdisciplinary Research Training Institute on Hispanic Substance Abuse.
Ray enjoys traveling with his husband, Wes, and exercising with their dog, Pepper. While in graduate school, Ray developed some skills for baking, and he continues to use his baking skills today.
Rachel Tambling receives Outstanding Mentor Award
Professor Rachel Tambling is a recipient of the 2023 Kathleen Briggs Outstanding Mentor Award. This award acknowledges an outstanding mentor of graduate students and new professionals in the field of marriage and family therapy (MFT).
S. Klein and A. Brenick’s research featured in UConn Today
Graduate student Sydney Klein and Associate Professor Alaina Brenick’s research on audience expectations for ballerina’s to be white was featured in UConn Today. Read the story here.
Marketa Burnett interviewed by Mashable
Mashable recently interviewed Marketa Burnett for their article “7 Skills to teach your daughter by age 13”. Read the article here.