Abagail Horton joined the HDFS graduate program in 2019 and completed her Ph.D. in HDFS in Spring 2024. During graduate school she worked with Dr. Beth Russell. Her first line of research was to understand the processes through which emotion regulation, stress, and relationship quality influence mental health outcomes. For example, during the pandemic, she collaborated with Dr. Beth Russell, Dr. Rachel Tambling, and other graduate students to collect data from several hundred parents nation-wide during the first few weeks of the Covid-19 pandemic. This work was one of the first to examine families’ experiences during the pandemic and revealed that caregivers experienced heightened rates of depression, anxiety, and stress as a result of the pandemic. In 2023, Abagail collaborated with Dr. Crystal Park, Dr. Beth Russell, and a clinical psychology graduate student to collect descriptive data on college students’ engagement in stress management activities, perceptions of these activities, and mental health symptoms based on apparent gender-based perceived barriers to recruitment.
Her second line of research centered around answering the question, “What works for whom and when, where, and why?” when examining mindfulness-based or school-based interventions and applying science. During graduate school, she was a team member and project manager for the evaluation of Connecticut’s 21st Century afterschool program, a nationwide effort to reduce the race-based achievement gap in K-12 public schools. Through her work on this project, she gained many skills. For example, she worked with a large 10-year longitudinal dataset with more than 10,000 students and was granted leadership opportunities to mentor a team of junior doctoral students and undergraduate students. She also worked with stakeholders to develop evaluation products that best fit their community needs as well as contributed to the pilot of new data collection on participating students’ social and emotional skills.
Abagail successfully defended her dissertation in March. Her mixed-methods dissertation brought a fresh lens to questions about mindfulness-based interventions. Specifically, she wrote a systematic review and proposed a mid-level theoretical model; conducted a qualitative study about early childhood educators’ stressors and perceptions of scaffolding children’s emotional development; and implemented and examined the acceptability, feasibility, and preliminary efficacy of an adapted group mindfulness-based intervention (PRISM) for early childhood educators.
In April, Abagail started a position as a Research and Evaluation Manager for the Institute for the Advancement of Community Health (IACH) at Furman University. She is looking forward to continuing working on applied research and evaluation of programs that support health and wellbeing. Outside of work, she can be found traveling, enjoying the sunshine, or spending time with her friends and family.
Lisa began working in the HDFS department in August of 2012. She had previously worked at Yale University’s Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS and received her bachelor’s and PhD degrees from UConn. Lisa initially worked at UConn Hartford where she enjoyed working with many first generation and non-traditional students, but transitioned to UConn Storrs when she took the role of Co-Director of the NIMH supported T32 training program Social Processes of HIV/AIDS. In this role she mentored numerous graduate students in programs across UConn in social aspects of disease prevention and treatment. Serving in this role has been one of her most rewarding experiences at UConn. Lisa has also served as the Co-Director of the Southeast HIV/AIDS Research and Evaluation (SHARE) Project for 13 years and counting, where she has conducted both qualitative and quantitative research studies to develop programs that seek to address gaps in health care access among populations impacted by concerns related to health care injustice. In this time, she has served as PI or Co-I on 15 R01s, an R21, and an R34 funded by National Institutes of Health. Programs developed by Lisa and her team have been evaluated by and incorporated into the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Compendium of Evidence Based Practice – a program that facilitates the promotion and uptake of community-based programs to address disease prevention and treatment. Lisa also serves as Co-Director of UConn’s Sexuality, Health, and Intersectional Experiences (SHInE) Lab where her work focuses on understanding health disparities among sexual and gender diverse youth and adults. Multiple HDFS graduate students are involved and contribute to the mission of both the SHARE Project and SHInE Lab.
Congratulations to Vida Samuel, winner of the 2024 Outstanding Undergraduate Faculty Advisor Award!
Professor Rebecca Puhl was quoted in a WebMD article on weight bias and fat shaming among doctors. Read the article here 
Congratulations to Beth Russell, whose promotion to professor was approved by the Board of Trustees and will officially begin in August 2024!