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.

Graduate Student Rachael Farina was invited to join the 100 Years of Women Scholarship Selection Committee for the upcoming academic year.

Darlis joined the UConn HDFS Ph.D. program in Fall 2021. She is the recipient of the CLAS Dean Graduate Fellowship and works as a graduate assistant for the Center for the Study of Culture, Health, and Human Development.  She previously earned her bachelor’s in Psychology from SUNY at Purchase College in New York.

During her time at Purchase, she took a required two-semester research methods and statistics course and a two-semester senior thesis project. Her thesis was a critical review of unpublished and peer-reviewed published articles from 2010-2020 that assessed the “bilingual advantage.” The bilingual advantage is the enhanced mental flexibility or ability to shift thoughts or actions according to the environment among people who speak more than one language. These research experiences helped Darlis realize what she wanted to include in her future career.

While an undergraduate student, she investigated the research literature on cross-cultural studies of human development and discovered the work of two UConn HDFS professors, Dr. Sara Harkness and Dr. Charles Super.  Notably, their cross-cultural research and work on parents’ cultural belief systems are what she found most exciting.  After discovering their work, Darlis learned about UConn’s HDFS program.

During Darlis’ time at UConn, she plans on studying mixed-race individuals, multicultural identity development, and possible intervention/prevention programs for immigrant/multicultural families.

In Darlis’ spare time, she enjoys watching old movies and, on special occasions, traveling back to the places and the people she loves.

XBIZ Magazine interviewed graduate student Rachael Farina for their November 2021 issue on the topic of burnout and self-care for adult performers. Read the article here (*warning: 18+ adult content).

Sarah Wen attended the UConn Coordinated Dietetics Program, an accelerated program that provided internships consisting of clinical, foodservice, community nutrition, specialty, and research rotations. Sarah Wen graduated Magna Cum Laude and received her Bachelor of Science in Dietetics in 2019.

Shortly after graduating, Sarah Wen became a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist (RDN). That summer, she worked as a research technician for Dr. Christopher Blesso from the UConn Nutritional Sciences Department. In this role, she helped with mouse colitis studies and conducted polymerase chain reactions (PCR), among other tasks. In fall 2019, Sarah Wen started new research with Dr. Blesso, focusing on the effects of milk polar lipids (MPLs) on lipid and blood-related parameters such as VLDL, LDL and HDL Cholesterol levels. During her 2-year master’s program, she helped run a MPL clinical study and was the sole RDN for a plant-based clinical study, both within the UConn Nutritional Sciences Department. In addition to coursework and research, Sarah Wen completed a capstone project, The Effects of Dairy Product Consumption on Cardiovascular Disease. In addition, she co-authored a paper, Milk Polar Lipids: Underappreciated Lipids with Emerging Health Benefits, published in Nutrients. Furthermore, Sarah Wen received the Eastern States Exposition Graduate Student Scholarship in fall 2019.

While working on her master’s capstone project, Sarah Wen interned with the UConn Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity under the supervision of Dr. Marlene Schwartz. During this internship, she worked on a project on the summer meal programs in CT, funded by the CT Department of Education. Sarah Wen participated in qualitative data collection that included individual interviews and off-site visits. Additionally, she worked with Dr. Caitlin Caspi from Allied Health Sciences on a Supporting Wellness at Pantries (SWAP) project. SWAP is a stoplight nutrition ranking system that assigns foods as red, yellow, or green depending on saturated fat, sodium, and sugar content, and was specifically designed for use within charitable food systems such as food pantries, to better rank overall food quality. Furthermore, Sarah Wen contributed to a National Institute of Health abstract regarding SWAP research.

Sarah Wen received a master’s in Nutritional Science in 2021 and then joined the HDFS program to work with Dr. Kim Gans. Sarah Wen’s current work focuses on qualitative and quantitative research to inform the design and evaluation of community nutrition interventions that target families and youth in settings like childcare and dental practices. These interventions help improve social and physical environments that influence children’s eating behaviors to prevent obesity, improve health and wellness, and reduce health disparities.

Sarah Wen is very excited to be a part of the HDFS PhD program and begin mixed methods research in community nutrition interventions!