Samantha Shaak (formerly Goodrich) graduated with her Master’s in Human Development and Family Studies from UConn in 2011 and went on to complete her Doctorate degree in 2014. She was drawn to the program because of the perspective it provided in understanding the interaction of personal and environmental influences on people’s development over time. During her time at UConn, she focused on prevention and intervention, program evaluation, and quantitative and qualitative data analysis. She had the opportunity to work with HDFS faculty on research evaluating child welfare, foster care, home visiting, and other social programs throughout the state of Connecticut and through the Center for Applied Research for Human Development. Core to this work was partnering with the agencies and organizations implementing programs and initiatives, including the Department of Children and Families, Supportive Housing for Families, Child FIRST, Jumpstart, and others.
As Samantha finished her degree and time at UConn, she was interested in continuing to work on applied, translational research outside of the academic environment. She accepted a position as a Senior Research and Evaluation Scientist in the Department of Community Health at Lehigh Valley Health Network (LVHN) in Pennsylvania. In this position, Samantha continued her program evaluation work, applying her Human Development and Family Studies perspective to health-related issues. Many of the influencers of social outcomes are also influencers of health outcomes, which led to her working on evaluations of a pediatric asthma program, a TimeBank, and a program for super-utilizers of the healthcare system.
In 2015, Samantha was invited to participate in the Rider-Pool Foundation Collective Impact Fellowship. This experience broadened her perspective to not only understand the impacts of a particular program but also the systems in which the program operates. This led to more of a focus on cross-sector approaches to build community, using data to inform and mobilize community change. Still focusing on partnerships, this work requires cross-sector collaborations between the healthcare system and community and governmental agencies, fostering trusting partnerships to address social needs. She is now the Director for Community Innovation & Evaluation at The Leonard Parker Pool Institute for Health at LVHN, working full time on creating systems-level changes to address deep-rooted social influences on health. Samantha and her husband live in Allentown, PA and recently welcomed their second daughter into their family in May.
Fanwen Zhang
Marianne was a student in the HDFS Early Childhood concentration in the late 90’s. As an undergraduate at UConn she discovered the Child Development Labs and found her calling as a teacher of very young children. While an undergraduate student at the Child Labs, she worked with infants, toddlers, preschoolers and their families under the guidance and supervision of the professional teaching staff. Marianne had found her place at UConn and her home away from home.
Kelsey Hammerman grew up in Windsor, Connecticut, and completed her bachelor’s degree in Political Science and History, with a minor in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies here at UConn in 2017. During her time here as an undergrad, she worked in Dining Services, in ResLife as a Resident Assistant, Game Room Monitor, and Student Supervising Assistant, and as a Public Programs Facilitator at the New England Air Museum. It was this latter experience, combined with classroom volunteering and mentoring, that inspired her to pursue education as a career.
Professor Kim Gans is Co-PI on a 6-month grant funded by the Partnership for A Healthy Mississippi, State of Mississippi Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) to pilot the feasibility and acceptability of adding a social isolation prevention intervention to Meals on Wheels deliveries in Mississippi.
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!
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.
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.
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.