Professor Rebecca Puhl was featured in an article in Axios about weight stigma in the workplace. Read the article here.

Dr. Marketa Burnett is a developmental psychologist who joined UConn as an assistant professor of HDFS and Africana Studies in August 2023. Through her work she strives to disrupt deficit-based narratives of Black girls and Black families and instead center their strengths, resilience, and resistance. Marketa is a proud native of Greensboro, North Carolina– a city rich in Black history and tradition. On February 1, 1960, the Greensboro Four sparked a nationwide sit-in movement at Woolworth’s lunch counter. Today, it is home to the International Civil Rights Center and Museum.

In 2017, she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology & African, African American, and Diaspora Studies from UNC Chapel Hill. She credits her time as a Ronald E. McNair scholar for introducing her to the many opportunities available to make meaningful social change through research. She would go on to complete her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology at UNC Chapel Hill. With support from the Ford Foundation, she launched the I PERSIST Project (Identifying Predictors of Engagement, Resilience, Socialization, and Identity in STem). In this project, she interviewed both caregivers and adolescent Black girls to examine the developmental mechanisms that influence Black girls’ STEM identity and persistence over time. Marketa continued her training at the University of South Carolina as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow where she investigated how religious coping factors might shape identity development and well-being among Black families.

Currently, Marketa investigates the psychological and contextual factors that shape Black girls’ identity development and their educational trajectories. In addition, she explores the ways Black family processes (e.g., socialization) mitigate the effects of educational inequality and promote resilience and resistance among Black youth. Marketa sees her research as storytelling. She intentionally partners with Black youth and families in the co-construction of knowledge to accurately represent their stories and center their ideas and solutions.

Outside of work, Marketa enjoys watching game shows (especially Jeopardy!), buying more books than she has time to read, visiting local wineries, and trying out new recipes in the kitchen.

Congratulations to Associate Professor Kari Adamsons, newly elected Board Member-at-Large for the National Council on Family Relations.

Professor Kim Gans’ new research with Meals on Wheels of Rhode Island was highlighted in UConn today. Read the article here.

 

Professor Kim Gans received the 2023 InCHIP Community-Engaged Health Research Excellence Award. This award recognizes a faculty member who has demonstrated excellence in health-related research conducted in collaboration with one or more community organizations and consistent with the mission of InCHIP. Congratulations Kim!

Emeritus Professor Ronald Rohner is the 2023 recipient of the Jean Lau Chin Award for Outstanding Psychologist in International Leadership Contributions from the American Psychological Association Division 52. Congratulations Ron!

Associate Professor Rachel Tambling received an REP Award: Understanding the effects of long-COVID on work, families, and mental health: Informing pathways for psychosocial intervention with Kelsi Carolan in SWK and UCHC clinical faculty.

Congratulations to Professor Preston Britner, recipient of the Provost’s Outstanding Service Award. This award is designed to honor faculty whose service to UConn is exemplary and has made an indelible impact in one or more areas to enhance the University’s mission in teaching, research, service, or engagement. So well earned!

Rachel Chazan Cohen joined the UConn HDFS faculty in August 2020. While starting a new position during a global pandemic and teaching online for the first time certainly posed challenges, the last three years has been a very productive period, much of which she attributes to the UConn context. 

Rachel’s work continues to focus on factors influencing the development of children, and on the creation, evaluation, and improvement of intervention programs for families with infants and toddlers. She is extremely proud of the UConn early childhood faculty and the work that they do to prepare students to work with young children and their families. Rachel and Caitlin Lombardi formed the ARC lab in Fall 2022 and have been successful in bringing together a community of postdocs, graduate students and undergraduate students to work on grants and contracts to study the accessibility and effectiveness of services families receive when their children are young.

Rachel’s overarching goal is to bridge the worlds of research, practice, and policy. She works with local early childhood programs on improving practice as well as with states and the federal government on policies to support programs and families. Over the past three years she has made connections with the CT Office of Early Childhood and especially focuses on how CT serves families with infants and toddlers.

The last three years have also brough many changes on her home front. Rachel’s children (twins) started college in Fall 2022, giving her a new perspective on working with undergraduate students. In her last faculty spotlight in September 2020 she mentioned a plan to start making wine in her basement…that has come to pass. She is now making very tasty red, white and rosé wine.  She and her husband continue to enjoy travel, hiking, and playing with their energetic adult dog.