Qianxia Jiang has an interdisciplinary background in obesity prevention and intervention, psychology, health equity, and agricultural economics. She plans to graduate with her Ph.D. in May 2022. She is interested in the factors that contribute to obesity-related disparity and inequities, including the influences of built environments on health risks in marginalized groups, and applying this knowledge to inform interventions to promote healthy living. Qianxia first discovered her passion for obesity research as an undergraduate when she conducted research assessing how a food selection inhibitory control training game of children’s response inhibition affected eating behavior.

Qianxia has worked with professors from different departments on multiple projects at UConn. She conducts both quantitative and qualitative research with her advisor, Dr. Kim Gans, on an NIH-funded evaluation study of a multicomponent intervention that supports and empowers family childcare providers to improve the food and physical activity environments in their homes. She first learned about health equity and policy research by working with Allied Health professor Dr. Kristen Cooksey Stowers on multiple studies related to built food environments, disparities in food insecurity status, health quality, diet quality, and weight status. Beginning last summer, Qianxia was involved in an interdisciplinary grant that examines the association between the changing market structure and health outcomes. She also examined how changes in food retail market concentration relate to racial and ethnic inequities in food access over time. Qianxia has published several peer-reviewed publications and presented her research at both international and national conferences.

Following graduation, Qianxia will become a postdoctoral scholar at the Center for Children’s Healthy Lifestyles and Nutrition, Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri. This fellowship opportunity will provide training in novel ways to measure physical activity, behavioral epidemiology, and implementation science.

In her spare time, Qianxia loves hiking, snorkeling, kayaking, and traveling. She plans to get advanced open water certificate in Hawaii this year. She has two cats (Tiger and Coyote).

Sabrina Uva (HDFS ’22) was featured in UConn Today for her advocacy work: Read the article here.

Tracy Walters in the winner of the CETL Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award! Tracy served as a solo instructor for two courses, remotely, during the 2020-2021 academic year, and has also served as a TA and a graduate student advisor for the department.  Congratulations Tracy!

Graduate student Kaleigh Ligus was recently selected as the inaugural summer public policy fellow at AcademyHealth. In this fellowship, she will work alongside the Director of Advocacy to advance the mission and objectives of AcademyHealth through advocacy, public policy, education, and policy communication.

Graduate student Samantha Lawrence’s recent publication on family-based weight stigma was featured in an article in ConscienHealth: Read the article here.

Samantha (Sam) Lawrence is a Ph.D. candidate dedicated to the study of identity-based stigma and health among LGBTQ+ individuals, folks with high body weight, and individuals with intersecting marginalized identities. She conducts quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods research related to these interests at the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Health with her doctoral advisor, Dr. Rebecca Puhl. Sam also collaborates on projects in the DASH and SHINE labs, under the mentorship of Drs. Eva Lefkowitz, Kay Simon, Lisa Eaton, and Ryan Watson, related to LGBTQ+ young people’s interpersonal relationships, experiences of stigma, and overall well-being.

Sam recently successfully defended her dissertation on weight communication and stigma in the family context. She conducted three studies using three different participant samples—including a multinational sample—and mixed methodologies. Collectively, findings from these studies underscore the prevalence and ramifications of family-based weight stigma in six Western countries, especially from members of one’s immediate family (e.g., mother, romantic partner), and highlight the myriad qualitatively distinct forms family-based weight stigma can take (e.g., teasing, passive aggressive remarks, social exclusion). These findings highlight the need for weight stigma reduction efforts and public health messaging campaigns to target family relationships, helping family members to reduce their internalized weight bias and engage in more supportive, rather than stigmatizing, communication about weight-related health with their loved ones.

In addition to honing her research skills while at UConn, Sam has had the privilege of mentoring more than a dozen undergraduate research assistants and Honors students and teaching several HDFS courses, including Research Methods in Human Development, Diversity Issues in HDFS, and Adolescent Development. In recognition of her commitment to mentorship and teaching, she received the 2019 Outstanding Instructor in Human Development and Family Sciences Award, the 2020 University Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award from the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, and the 2020 Mentorship Excellence Award from the Office of Undergraduate Research.

Sam is incredibly excited for her professional next steps. This summer, she’ll be joining Dr. Marla Eisenberg and her team as a post-doctoral research scholar at the University of Minnesota in the Division of General Pediatrics and Adolescent Health. As part of Dr. Eisenberg’s mixed-methods Protection at the Intersection for Queer Teens of Color (PIQ-TOC) study, Sam’s research will focus on the health and experiences of LGBTQ+ adolescents with multiple marginalized social positions.

Outside of her work, Sam enjoys distance running (she completed 3 marathons and a trail ultramarathon in her time as a graduate student), hiking, Peloton workouts, practicing French, tending to her house plants, and—most of all—spending time with her loved ones.

Lindsay joined UConn’s HDFS department in 2015 after graduating with her bachelor’s degree in psychology from Gettysburg College. For much of her graduate career, she worked with Dr. Preston Britner on the evaluation team of the Connecticut site of a federal demonstration project called Partnerships to Demonstrate the Effectiveness of Supportive Housing for Families in the Child Welfare System. There she worked with the Connecticut nonprofit service provider, The Connection Inc. (TCI), to assess whether a more intensive supportive housing program provided value-added to families involved in the child welfare system. She also wrote reports on topics such as the benefits of a scattered-site housing approach and peer mentoring for child welfare-involved families. Lindsay’s ongoing dissertation work is an extension of what she learned throughout this experience. In this project, she uses 20+ years of DCF data on families who have been involved in TCI’s supportive housing program, to assess the long-term impacts of this program on child welfare outcomes.

Lindsay’s involvement with this evaluation and exposure to the nonprofit sector sparked an interest that she wanted to explore further. As a result, she pursued two graduate certificates at UConn – one in Program Evaluation and one in Nonprofit Management. Lindsay enjoyed both of these experiences and solidified her interest in pursuing a career in which she could combine her background in HDFS with program evaluation and the nonprofit sector.

In October of 2021, Lindsay found a position that would allow her to do just that. She is now the Evaluation Manager at The Home for Little Wanderers in Massachusetts. The Home is the oldest child welfare agency in the U.S. and provides services to children and young adults including foster care and adoption services, behavioral health services, group homes, special education schools, and residential programs for transition age youth. In her new position, Lindsay has been learning a great deal about The Home’s approach to practice including trauma-informed care, restorative practices, and achieving permanency for youth. Some of Lindsay’s responsibilities include managing a follow-up project where families are interviewed about youths’ well-being after discharge from The Home’s services, quarterly data reporting, helping programs remain compliant with funders’ reporting requirements, and developing new evaluation strategies to assess how effectively The Home is carrying out best-practices in their work.

In her spare time, Lindsay enjoys spoiling her puppy, Hodie; trying new foods and cuisines, and traveling every chance she gets.

Graduate student Rachael Farina was invited by the Hartford Gay and Lesbian Health Collective to lead an online discussion about pornography literacy.

Benton Renley joined the UConn Human Development and Family Sciences Department in Fall 2021 as a first-year doctoral student. Ben, though, is no stranger to UConn HDFS as he graduated with dual Bachelor of Arts degrees from UConn in Psychological Sciences and Human Development and Family Sciences with a minor in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies in 2020. As an undergraduate, he completed most of his courses at the UConn Stamford campus. He treasures UConn Stamford as well as his springtime walks through the cherry tree grove (the largest one in New England) across the street in Mill River Park.

As an Honors Scholar, Ben completed an Honors thesis in HDFS with Dr. Kari Adamsons. His research focused on dimensions of identity and self-identification of disability among emerging adults diagnosed with anxiety and depression disorders. During this time, he discovered an affinity for the research process as he liked having an avenue to pursue questions that lacked answers. Ben also began to work with Dr. Annamaria Csizmadia as her research assistant to examine the associations between family acceptance and psychological adjustment among biracial LGBTQ+ youth. Fortuitously, this research utilized data from the LGBTQ+ National Teen Survey conducted by Dr. Ryan Watson.

Ben now works with Dr. Watson and the other members of the SHINE (Sexuality, Health, and INtersectional Experiences) lab to study health disparities among sexual and gender diverse (SGD) individuals. Ben is particularly interested in understanding how mental health outcomes and health behaviors of SGD youth and young adults differ across combinations of overlapping identities. In the year ahead, he looks forward to working with the SHINE lab to launch another iteration of the national survey on LGBTQ+ teens. Participating in this process from the early stages will allow him to really learn what goes into executing research on this scale.

Ben is delighted and excited to continue his academic journey at UConn surrounded by the steadfast support and abundant knowledge of mentors, colleagues, and friends. When he’s not taking copious course notes, he may be found playing notes of the musical variety on his electric guitar.

Nathaniel Stekler received his Bachelor of Science degree in psychology from Union College (NY) in 2020 with a minor in philosophy. He graduated with departmental honors, summa cum laude, and as a member of ​​Phi Beta Kappa. Nathaniel also won the John Lewis March Prize, awarded to a senior who has shown increased interest and ability in psychology during the final two years of college.

Nathaniel joined UConn’s HDFS graduate program in 2021 to work with Dr. Preston Britner, with an interest in ​​early attachments and how adverse childhood experiences can moderate associations of early attachments with personality, emotions, relationships, and worldviews. In addition, he is interested in how adverse environments such as homelessness negatively affect the attachment relationship. He also wants to work to develop interventions and policies that address the impact of adverse childhood experiences on the attachment relationship.

At Union, Nathaniel worked with Dr. Joshua Hart on his senior thesis, examining how personality affects political viewpoints. Specifically, he studied how narcissism affected people’s support for Trump’s immigration policy and ultimately support for Trump himself.  Nathaniel presented this research at the 2020 Society for Personality and Social Psychology Conference. Later, Nathaniel and Dr. Hart published this work in The Journal of Social Psychology.

After Nathaniel graduated, he volunteered at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville in Dr. Sarah Lamer’s lab. He assisted in selecting articles and coding verb framing in sentences and images on the topic of sexual assault. Nathaniel continues to collaborate with Dr. Lamer on work that addresses sexual assault stereotypes in the United States.

In addition to volunteering at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, in the year after graduation Nathaniel assisted Dr. Preston Britner and Julie Brisson in a recently submitted systematic review and meta-analysis on the association between adverse childhood experiences and allostatic load across the lifespan.

In his free time, Nathaniel enjoys skiing and hiking. He has a goal of skiing down Mt. Washington and hiking all 48 of the 4,000 ft. peaks in the White Mountains by the end of next year.