Suzanne came to UConn with a BS in psychology from Penn State University hoping to become a therapist. She enrolled in the UConn HDFS master’s in Marriage and Family Therapy program. She selected the Marriage and Family Therapy degree because it meant she wouldn’t have to get a Ph.D. to practice. The irony of course is she did get a Ph.D. at UConn in Family Studies with a specialization in Marriage and Family Therapy. Her time at UConn was foundational and challenging. She started the master’s program with no idea about HDFS or Marriage and Family Therapy and quickly, thanks to her professors, became immersed in both. She had worked in a research lab as an undergraduate but wasn’t passionate about research until taking the first research methods course in HDFS. From that she got the “research bug” and hasn’t looked back since. Although the thesis was optional in the MS program, she did a thesis, collecting her own data from multiple family members. She took courses with many of the professors, and Ron Sabatelli said he was particularly impressed with her work and asked if she would consider a Ph.D. She said yes, still not really knowing what she was going to do with her life. She completed the Ph.D. with Ron Sabatelli as her advisor, and Rob Ryder and Steve Anderson as her committee members. They were very supportive, and they wrote other manuscripts together. She had some publications when she completed her degree. She went off to “save the world” with research and got a position at a research contract firm in the DC area. She hated it, and through contacts at UConn, got the opportunity to be a visiting professor at Virginia Tech’s Falls Church campus in a Marriage and Family Therapy master’s program. As soon as she got back into academia and started to teach and mentor students, she knew she was where she belonged. Again, through contacts at UConn, she applied for and got her current position at The Ohio State University as a professor in their Couple and Family Therapy Program.

Suzanne has been with The Ohio State University for 32 years, she received tenure in 1997, and became a full professor in 2007. She became the program director for their accredited Ph.D. program in Couple and Family Therapy in 2003. Currently she holds this position and is working to have a new master’s program in Couple and Family Therapy accredited. Throughout her career she has published her research, taught courses at the undergrad and graduate level and supervised new clinicians. Whenever she starts a new manuscript she thinks about the lethal red pen of Steve Anderson and the comments and edits of Ron Sabatelli on her first few manuscripts at UConn. They taught her how to write, how to think and how to be critical of the literature. She has used those skills and passed them on to her own students. When she met Steve and Ron at conferences she would joke with them that they were now grandparents to her own students. Now she has her own “grandchildren” in terms of academic pedigree and she is continually grateful for the training she received at UConn. This training and her work culminated in her receipt of the 2023 Cumulative Contribution to Family Therapy Research Award from the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy. Suzanne was honored to receive this award.

Suzanne will be retiring in the next few years and hopes to paint and travel. Her time at UConn seems like a long time ago, but it shaped her and provided the foundation for her success.

Susana Herrera (BA ’18) is the new Program Coordinator of Connecticut CASA. Since her time at UConn, she earned an M.S. in counseling and worked at UConn as a Student Services Program Coordinator.

Amber Eddy-Martinez, a 2020 UConn graduate with a B.A. in HDFS, showcased her commitment to underprivileged youth during her time at UConn, contributing over 300 hours to a church-run early learning center in Norwalk, CT. Her engagement extended to UConn’s Husky for a Day program, where she provided prospective students with insight into academic programs.

Post-graduation, Amber excelled as a Lead Infant/Toddler Teacher at Dartmouth College’s Childcare Center, integrating nature and seasons into curriculum development. In 2021 she relocated to Denver, where she thrived at The Beehive and The Wonder Academy. At these private early learning centers, she gained exposure to employment-based childcare dynamics. Amber embraced a new challenge when she became the Infant Program Supervisor at The Wonder Academy, a Reggio-Emilia school in downtown Denver. This position expanded her expertise in childcare logistics, encompassing staff management, parent communications, and billing.

In March 2023, Amber transitioned to Auraria Early Learning Center as Operations Coordinator, overseeing children ages 1-5 and managing diverse responsibilities like social media, supply procurement, staff onboarding, and newsletters. Her journey reflects a passionate commitment to early childhood education.

Jess Gagnon graduated from UConn in 2020 with a B.A. double major in HDFS and Psychology. While studying at UConn, Jess was involved with grassroots organizing through UConn Public Interest Research Group (UConnPIRG) and worked with first year students through the Honors office. Although initially unsure of her career path, Jess was inspired by the introductory HDFS class she took as a first-year student that introduced her to the broad range of possibilities within the helping professions.

Through HDFS, Jess gained an incredibly valuable foundation in human development that prepared her for a career in social work. During her senior year, Jess used her HDFS Honors thesis to conduct interviews with activists at UConn, eventually focusing on the diverse pathways that lead people to volunteer their time to causes that matter to them, as well as the factors that can so often to burnout.

After graduating from UConn in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Jess moved to Boston to pursue her Master of Social Work from Boston College. She interned with Project Place, where she worked as a case manager with clients in South Boston who were facing homelessness, addiction, and mental illness during the pandemic. This experience, combined with her HDFS background, led Jess to focus the rest of her education on public health and healthcare.

When Jess graduated from Boston College, she was hired by her second-year internship placement, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, to rebuild an onsite volunteer program amid the pressures that the pandemic has placed on healthcare facilities.

Since starting her career at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Jess has had the privilege of developing and implementing programs with 100+ volunteers per week. Now a Licensed Certified Social Worker (LCSW), Jess is passionate about building impactful programs and welcoming communities where people can use their authentic selves to help others.
She works closely with healthcare professionals throughout the Institute to identify opportunities for volunteers to contribute to Dana-Farber’s mission of providing supportive, patient-centered care to people with cancer and their families. Jess credits her time at UConn with helping her develop the knowledge and drive to build a career in healthcare.

Congratulations to Alum Suzanne Bartle-Haring (MS ’87, PhD ’90) the 2023 recipient of the Cumulative Contribution to Family Therapy Research Award from the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy.

Michael knew at a young age he wanted to work to create greater access and opportunity to corporate America for individuals from underrepresented groups. Through his previous work with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of Connecticut and their various Diversity and Inclusion training programs, Michael saw the importance of creating spaces of belonging and inclusion for all. While at UConn, Michael was able to engage in classes that taught the sociological and anthropological components of Human Development in underrepresented communities that became the backbone of his career in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

While at UConn, Michael was active with UConn Hillel, the ADL, and the Puerto Rican and Latin American Cultural Center. In his senior year, Michael secured an internship in Diversity & Inclusion at the Phoenix Wealth Management Company in Hartford. Upon graduating from UConn in 2001 with a bachelor’s degree in HDFS, Michael was able to leverage his degree and his internship at the Phoenix to land a job as a Diversity & Inclusion Coordinator at ESPN where he helped to build ESPN’s D&I programs from the ground up. Michael helped launch various employee resource groups, ran the Women’s Leadership Development Program and various hiring, mentoring, and retention initiatives for the company.

Michael has maintained a focus on building greater inclusion and equitable systems within large companies like MassMutual, EY, and Aetna. Today, Michael leads Global DEI efforts for the Marketing organization at Google. Michael’s focus is to ensure leaders are held accountable for real change; Google Marketing builds a team that looks like its users and fosters belonging for all; and builds a body of work that challenges the status quo. Michael also holds an Executive Masters in Human Resource Management from Cornell (‘17) and serves on the Board of Directors for UConn Hillel and the ADCOLOR organization.

After graduating in 1996 with a PhD in HDFS, Lenette Azzi-Lessing continued her leadership as Executive Director of Children’s Friend, a child-and-family-serving organization in Rhode Island. She and her team built a broad range of services to meet the needs of marginalized children and families, particularly those in poverty. During her time there they developed one of the nation’s first programs for child-welfare-involved families affected by parental substance use and Rhode Island’s first comprehensive family support center. Under Dr. Azzi-Lessing’s leadership, Children’s Friend also pioneered an organizational equity and inclusion initiative to support its antiracist, anti-oppressive approach to service delivery.

In 2007, Dr. Azzi-Lessing left agency work to accept a faculty position in the Master of Social Work (MSW) program at Wheelock College in Boston, where she became a tenured, full professor. She founded Wheelock’s Graduate Certificate Program in Early Childhood Mental Health and served as faculty leader of Wheelock’s partnership with the University of Fort Hare (UFH) in South Africa to promote the wellbeing of young children and their families. Her work with UFH included co-conducting a community assessment and co-developing a Graduate Certificate Program in Early Childhood Development and Family Support in the South African Context.

In 2018, Dr. Azzi-Lessing joined Boston University (BU) School of Social Work. She serves as department chair and coordinator of the school’s Specialization in Children, Youth, and Families. Building on her relationships with the South African early childhood development community, Dr. Azzi-Lessing initiated a partnership between BU and the Children’s Institute at the University of Cape Town, focused on preventing violence against young children in South Africa and other low-and-middle-income countries. This work engages experts from the Global South, including community members with lived experience, to identify effective violence-prevention strategies.

Dr. Azzi-Lessing is a Senior Fellow at the Child Welfare League of America and a founding member of its Research Equity Committee. She is the author of numerous publications, including the book, “Behind from the Start: How America’s War on the Poor is Harming Our Most Vulnerable Children.”

Dr. Azzi-Lessing notes that her learning at UConn School of Family Studies (now HDFS) was the ideal complement to her social work education, enabling her to leverage a deep understanding of child and family development in fighting the systemic inequities that threaten the life chances of millions of children in the U.S. and globally.

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.

Blake Brandes graduated from UConn in 2016 with a B.A. in Human Development and Family Studies and a concentration in Early Childhood Development and Education. Upon completion of the early childhood program, supervised practicum, and student teaching placements in the UConn Child Labs, Blake earned the State of Connecticut Early Childhood Teacher Credential (ECTC) through the Office of Early Childhood.

During her time at UConn, Blake devoted 300 hours of service to local preschoolers through the Jumpstart program as an AmeriCorps Member. She also was involved with UConn Hillel, serving as the Vice President of Tzedek (Social Justice) in 2015. In addition, Blake was a student worker at the Child Labs after completing her student teaching practicum course.

After graduating from UConn, Blake began her career with a private child care program as a Lead Infant Teacher for one year, and then became a Preschool Teacher at Stony Brook University’s child care center, Stony Brook Child Care Services (SBCC), for two years. Her education and hands-on experiences from the HDFS and early childhood programs greatly influenced her teaching philosophy and prepared her to be an effective early childhood teacher. Blake completed her M.A. in Liberal Studies at Stony Brook University with specializations in Child Development and Leadership Studies in 2021.

During her time at SBCC, Blake developed an unexpected enthusiasm for mentoring young adults, as SBCC serves as a practicum site for an undergraduate psychology internship course at Stony Brook University. Blake assisted in leading a seminar course for the interns and supervised their placement hours in the classroom she co-led.

Blake’s new interest in mentoring young adults led her back to Jumpstart, the program that ignited her passion for early childhood care and education. She has been working with Jumpstart since January 2020 as the Site Manager at Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU). Jumpstart’s mission is to ensure every child enters kindergarten prepared to succeed, and specifically focuses their efforts to benefit children who come from underserved communities. In her role at Jumpstart, Blake recruits, trains, and coaches 35-40 SCSU students each year to implement high-quality supplemental curricula in preschool classrooms in the New Haven community. Her education and experiences in the HDFS and ECDE programs are still relevant and valuable in this work, as she is able to share her knowledge of child development and early education best practices with the college students she supervises and coaches in Jumpstart.

Blake lives with her boyfriend of 6 years, Dan, and their cat, Lexi, in Newington, Connecticut. Outside of work, she enjoys reality television, musical theater, and spending time with loved ones. She is extremely grateful for her undergraduate experience in the HDFS program and with the UConn Child Labs!