Roni Lang, HDFS adjunct professor at the UConn Stamford campus, was recently selected as the National Association of Social Workers- Connecticut Chapter- as Social Worker of the Year for 2022. Roni shared the following Maya Angelou quote which she said guides her professional life: “success is liking yourself, liking what you do and liking how you do it.” Sounds like Roni is really living her motto – Congratulations Roni!
Author: Janice Berriault
Sascha Siegel, HDFS Undergrad Spotlight, October 2022
Ashley Dyer, HDFS Alumni Spotlight, November 2022
Ashley Dyer graduated from UConn in 2019 with a B.A. in Human Development and Family Studies with a concentration in Early Childhood Development. While at UConn, she was very fortunate to be involved in many club organizations and mentorship programs such as the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP), Preparing African American Students to Sustain Success (PASS) Program, Sisters Inspiring Sisters, and volunteer work through her sorority, Sigma Gamma Rho Inc. Her participation in these activities fueled her passion for working with children and families. She started at UConn wanting to be a sports medicine doctor and was on the pre-kinesiology track. As she went through her college career she quickly realized that that was not her true calling and ended up switching her major a few times. It was only when she took her first intro class in HDFS that she was hooked on a major. It was the HDFS 1070 course (Individual and Family Development) that really sealed the deal for her! It not only helped her learn a lot about herself but also led to her passion of finding a way to make an impact in families’ lives outside of the classroom.
After she graduated, Ashley became an Early Intervention Service coordinator with a nonprofit organization under the Massachusetts Dept. of Public Health (MDPH). In this position, she was able to help the families of children from birth to three years old learn about child development and resources within their area for children with developmental delays. While working at MDPH Ashley was grateful to get into the world of Applied Behavior Analysis, or ABA therapy, through working with these same children. Two years later, she became a registered behavior technician and moved back to Connecticut where she now works with school-aged children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and other neuro-diverse developmental delays.
Being part of the HDFS community at UConn not only gave Ashley a sense of belonging but also allowed her to explore her interests to find out who she wanted to be and do in this world! To all those who may have thought about taking an HDFS course but are unsure… do it! You may never know what impact it might have on your life as it did on Ashley’s. She is forever grateful to UConn’s HDFS department and advisors for allowing her to find her purpose and true calling!
Sabrina Uva, HDFS Grad Student Spotlight, November 2022
Sabrina Uva earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Human Development and Family Sciences from UConn in 2022 with a double minor in Psychology and Gerontology. She graduated Summa Cum Laude and was a member of various honors societies including Phi Beta Kapa, Psi Chi, and Alpha Lambda Delta. In addition, she served as the President of the Student Government Association at the UConn Stamford Campus. She was awarded the Cohen Scholarship for enhancing community due to her leadership accomplishments. Specifically, she worked in a coalition of legislators to pass a bill on menstrual equity and led an initiative that provided free menstrual products to the campus community. Sabrina is passionate about creating inclusive communities and plans to continue her efforts through policy and research in the Human Development and Family Sciences doctoral program.
Sabrina started her graduate studies working on anti-racism research with her advisor, Dr. Annamaria Csizmadia. Broadly, Sabrina focuses her research on understanding the implications of racial bias for college students’ mental health outcomes. She is pursuing this research interest by conducting a study to examine if protest and activism combined with pandemic-related stressors might affect college students’ psychological and academic adjustment. She is also interested in understanding social media’s role when engaging in these activities. She has submitted her work to present to professional organizations including the Society for Research in Child Development and the Society of Research on Adolescence.
In addition to her research, Sabrina is interested in utilizing emerging technologies for the social good. She currently serves as the Lead of Writing for the NASA Big Idea Challenge finalist team. In her work with the team, she applies human development frameworks to understand how to use advanced technology to foster therapeutic advancements and inclusive communities. In addition, she worked in an entrepreneurial business leadership academy to create an impact project, focused on utilizing technology to facilitate projects and creative ideas among students, especially students with neurodivergent backgrounds. Sabrina is excited to bring her interdisciplinary background in innovation, policy, and research to the HDFS graduate program.
Dilara Yaya-Bryson, HDFS Faculty Spotlight, November 2022
Dilara Yaya-Bryson is an early childhood education (ECE) scholar. In the Fall of 2022, she moved to Connecticut to join the UConn HDFS department as an Assistant Research Professor (i.e., College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Research and Teaching Scholar). She has been in academia for nearly fifteen years. Prior to coming to UConn, she worked as a graduate research assistant and lecturer in different universities in the United States and her home country, Turkey.
Dilara’s interest in educational research started in 2008, after receiving her undergraduate degree in elementary education and teaching. While dreaming of academia, she began her graduate school journey with a master’s program in educational administration at Hacettepe University, Turkey. During this period, she realized that educational administration scholars heavily focused on elementary education and onward. This realization lit a question in Dilara’s mind: “How about early childhood education?” Therefore, in 2012, she decided to pursue a doctorate in early childhood education (ECE) at the same university and infuse her administrative perspective into ECE research. Dilara’s research centers on how to improve the quality of ECE, emphasizing research, policy, and practice intersections.
“Quality” is an umbrella term for Dilara’s research, which covers a range of parameters and policy considerations, including ECE classroom environment, workforce qualifications and professional development, administrative quality, and equitable and inclusive settings. For her first doctoral dissertation, she aimed to highlight the policy gaps in quality assurance of ECE settings in Turkey and inquire about successful examples abroad. The Scientific and Technologic Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) awarded her with an international doctoral scholarship. She came to the United States in 2015 as a visiting scholar to collaborate with professors at the University of North Carolina (UNC) Greensboro. For a year, she collected data to look into a well-established Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS) in North Carolina. During this process, she visited several ECE centers to observe classrooms and interview teachers, center directors, and state QRIS consultants. She also had the chance to join graduate classes and better understand the graduate school system in the US.
After a productive year and meeting wonderful mentors, she returned to UNC Greensboro as an international student in 2017 to pursue her second doctorate in HDFS. This time, she framed her dissertation study toward analyzing a US-based nationally representative dataset to explore Head Start classroom quality, workforce experiences, and policy connections. In 2021, she received her doctorate in HDFS with a minor in educational research methodology.
Throughout graduate school, Dilara also worked as a research assistant in various research project teams on ECE teacher preparation and professional development, quality measurement of ECE settings, dual-language learners in Head Start settings, and Montessori education. In addition to her research experiences, she has assisted, taught, and co-taught undergraduate courses on diversity, equity, and inclusion in ECE settings and human development. Dilara is thrilled about new research collaborations at UConn, focusing on effective infant and toddler services and policies. She also will be teaching human development to UConn undergraduate students.
Outside her professional life, Dilara loves traveling, daily meditative walks, whispering her orchids to bloom quickly, cooking (and eating!), watching comedy shows from the 1990s and 2000s with her husband, and virtual coffee dates with her parents overseas.
Joshua Miller ’97 HDFS Alumni Spotlight, October 2022
Joshua Miller received his Ph.D. from HDFS in 1997. He had previously earned an MSW and worked as a social worker for 20 years with individuals, families, and communities in Seattle, London, Dublin, and Western Massachusetts before entering the UConn HDFS program. He was also an assistant professor at Smith College School for Social Work while studying at UConn. Josh was a full-time professor at Smith College for 30 years before retiring as a full professor in July 2022. At Smith, he taught courses in social policy, community activism, anti-racism, psychosocial responses to disasters, and positive psychology. Josh also co-facilitated an ongoing seminar for faculty to deepen their competency with issues of oppression and social identity in the classroom called “Pedagogy and Diversity.” He taught about responding to disasters at Beijing Normal University and Fudan University between 2008-2016 after responding to the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008.
Josh has published six books, including three editions of Racism in the United States: Implications for the helping professions, which he co-authored with Ann Marie Garran and Lisa Werkmeister Rozas (both professors at the UConn School of Social Work) and Hye-Kyung Kang, program director of the Seattle University School of Social Work. He published a book called Psychosocial capacity building in response to disasters and is completing a book with the working title of Psychosocial responses to sociopolitical targeting, oppression and violence: Intervention strategies for helping professionals.
In addition to his teaching and scholarship, Josh has responded to many disasters in his community, the U.S. and around the world. He is a member of a local team that offers critical incident responses to firefighters, police officers and emergency medical personnel in his community. He responded to Hurricane Katrina and 9/11 and has consulted with responders to school and community shootings. Internationally, he has worked in Sri Lanka, Haiti, China, and Canada in response to disasters and armed conflict. He has also led a psychosocial and medical capacity building project in Northern Uganda since 2010 in response to a 20-year armed conflict.
Throughout all of his work, Josh has been concerned with confronting the affects of coloniality and white supremacy and Western cultural hegemony on the psychosocial well-being of the global majority residing in many different countries, and recovering and respecting indigenous practices. Although recently retired, he plans to continue his writing and responses to disasters and ongoing social targeting and oppression, along with spending time with his daughters and grandchildren. His experience at HDFS, particularly the knowledge, support, respect and flexibility that he encountered from his professors, provided him with a solid foundation for a very meaningful and productive academic and practice career.
Alexander Del Farno, HDFS Grad Student Spotlight, October 2022
Alex Del Farno is a first-year Ph.D. student who joined the HDFS department in 2022 to work with Dr. Lisa Eaton. He earned his B.A. in Psychology from the University of Rhode Island in 2020. Alex’s research interests focus broadly on the well-being of sexual and gender minorities (SGM), primarily involving individuals with transgender experience. Specifically, Alex is interested in how SGM embrace sexuality in the form of sex positivity, sexual safety, and health, and the role these factors play in their identity. Alex intends to collaborate on projects in the SHINE lab under Dr. Ryan Watson.
Alex has been doing research with SGM populations since his undergraduate years. For most of his time at URI, he studied attitudes and behaviors regarding transgender-identifying individuals, as well as campus climate for the identifying students. At URI Alex’s research was paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, and he graduated soon after. After graduation, he worked as a community behavioral health specialist for adults with severe mental illness and addiction. Subsequently, Alex served as a lead research assistant at Brown University working with trans-women at risk of HIV to foster support, sexual health, and PrEP education. Alex also volunteered with SHIP (Sexual Health Includes Pleasure) to encourage inclusive, medically accurate, and safe sex education for adults. He also became a certified HIV test counselor. Eager to continue his research and expand his knowledge in the field, Alex intends to make the most of his first and future years at UConn.
In his free time, Alex loves creative writing, cooking, and making art. He credits his family for his passion for helping, as both his mother and older sister are healthcare professionals. Alex spent two years learning and speaking Japanese, and his dream is to one day visit Japan.
Cora Megan, HDFS Faculty Spotlight, October 2022
Cora’s career in early childhood development and education began at UConn 15 years ago. After starting her college career as a music major at the Hartt School of Music, she felt compelled to transition into a field that could leave more of an impact. Because she always had a special interest in babies and toddlers, she was drawn to the HDFS program at UConn and completed the early childhood specialization in 2010. This program connected her with some incredible mentors who have helped shape her professional career in the years since.
After graduating, Cora found a remarkable early learning center, Alphabet Academy, located in Hamden, Connecticut where she decided to plant her roots. Cora started as a toddler teacher but gained teaching experience with infants through preschoolers over the course of six years. She was an integral part of opening their Yale affiliated site, The Nest, where she served as the director for three years. In 2019 she helped launch their fourth campus in Branford where she spent the past three years. Alphabet and The Nest’s mission is based on giving children the time and space to develop into their authentic selves. In carrying out this mission, she was able to develop and refine her teaching skills and gained a profound understanding of how to nurture children’s social and emotional development.
Even though Cora loved working with children and families in this capacity, she longed to develop a deeper understanding of parenthood and the parent-child relationship. This interest led her to return to UConn to pursue her Master’s degree in HDFS. In 2018 she completed this degree while working full time as a center director at the Nest. Through her graduate experience, she became a registered Circle of Security Facilitator, received her infant mental health endorsement and presented at the World Association of Infant Mental Health. Cora was also exposed to teaching undergraduates for the first time as a teaching assistant- an experience that was both challenging and rewarding. After graduating, she wanted to continue teaching undergraduates in her area of expertise and sought out an adjunct faculty position at UConn Stamford where she has taught child development courses for the past two years. She is also a parent educator for Peace at Home Parenting Solutions and regularly provides online webinars and individual consulting to parents and providers.
In Cora’s career, it seems like all roads lead back to UConn, and she is thrilled to join the early childhood specialization as a full-time faculty member on the Stamford Campus this year. She intends to pay it forward to this generation of UConn students and closely mentor them so that they are as prepared and excited to join the early childhood workforce as she was over a decade ago.
Cora lives in Hamden CT with her husband Brian, 1 year old son Everett, and dog Ziggy. In her spare time, she can be found playing flute in the American Chamber Orchestra, trying out new recipes, enjoying a group fitness class or spending time with family and friends.
Recent Alum Hilal Kuscul awarded for outstanding achievements
Congratulations to recent PhD graduate Hilal Kuscul, who received National Family on Council Relations (NCFR) Honors Student Recognition, “awarded to students who demonstrate outstanding achievements in academics, leadership, and community service in the discipline of Family Science.”
Alumna Kate Dibble starts as Research Fellow at Dana-Farber
Kate Dibble (PhD ’20), recent finished her postdoctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins and started a position as a Research Fellow in Medical Breast Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. She also will be working at UConn teaching HDFS 2200. Welcome Kate!