Elise is a first-year PhD student working with Dr. Eva Lefkowitz. She grew up in Seattle, but moved to Utah to attend Brigham Young University (BYU). At BYU, Elise graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Science in Human Development and minor in Global Women’s Studies. At BYU, she worked as a head teaching assistant for several courses, including human development and gender development, where she developed a love for studying gender and sexuality across childhood and adolescence. Working with Dr. Adam Rogers and his research team on Project ADEPT (Advancing the Development of Emotional Proficiencies in Teens), Elise completed her minor capstone studying the relationship dynamics of parents and their sexual-minority teens. She presented this project and two other projects focused on gender issues at the Mary Lou Fulton Conference held by BYU. Through her teaching and research experience at BYU, she developed a passion for both practices that fueled her desire to pursue further education and eventually become a professor.

At UConn, Elise aims to further study how children and adolescents understand and express gender and sexuality throughout their development. Specifically, she wants to investigate the influence that parents and families have on their children’s understanding of these concepts. She is fascinated by the intersection of family life and social development: how parents and families help shape their kids’ perceptions of social norms and roles. Through studying these topics, Elise hopes to translate research into practice by providing parents with guidance on how to better communicate about gender and sexuality with their kids in a healthy, inclusive, and accepting manner.

Although she aims to teach at the university level, Elise loves working directly with infants and children. For two years, she volunteered at Family Haven in the crisis nursery and helped provide children of all ages with respite care. Over the summer, she also worked at a childcare center as a teacher with infants aged 6-12 months. While she loved learning about child development in the classroom, she found it even more insightful to witness the immense growth and personality development made at this age in such a short time.

Veronica Hanna-Walker will complete her Ph.D. in Summer 2024. She enrolled in the HDFS program in 2020 to work with Dr. Eva Lefkowitz on research about sexual identity development and the health and health-related outcomes of sexual and gender diverse (SGD) youth and young adults. During graduate school, Veronica worked on several research projects, including a longitudinal project examining SGD college students’ health and well-being during academic breaks with Dr. Lefkowitz.

Veronica successfully defended her dissertation in May. In her dissertation, she used qualitative and quantitative methods to understand the role of religion in SGD youth’s and young adults’ lives. Findings included a better understanding of SGD youth’s experiences of religious parents’ reactions to their diverse sexual orientations and gender identities along with narratives from SGD young adults’ experiences in religions that are disaffirming of sexual and gender diversity.

Veronica recently accepted a position as a research associate at UConn’s School of Social Work. She intends to continue pursuing applied research. Outside of work, Veronica can be found hiking, reading, walking, or working out.

Lexi Tomkunas will complete her PhD in Spring 2024. For her dissertation, she conducted a state-wide analysis of codes of conduct and exclusionary discipline outcomes in Florida as well as semi-structured interviews with educators to explore how mindsets underlie the discipline process. Lexi entered the program having taught kindergarten at a Title I elementary school in Miami, Florida, and has continued teaching elementary school throughout her time at UConn. Her passion for education equity and bridging the research to practice gap underscored her experience in the program.  

At UConn, Lexi has collaborated with her advisor, Dr. Maria LaRusso, on research related to children’s social, emotional, and behavioral well-being and educator well-being. Additionally, she worked with Dr. Beth Russell and Dr. Rachel Tambling on a research project focused on family relationships during the pandemic. Lexi has also collaborated on research projects with various faculty in the Neag School of Education. She completed both the Culture, Health, and Human Development and College Instruction graduate certificates at UConn, as well as a graduate certificate in Applied Behavior Analysis at the Florida Institute of Technology. Furthermore, she was a Southern Education Foundation “SELI” fellow in the summer of 2021 and engaged in research and policy work related to Georgia’s school discipline practices. One of Lexi’s favorite experiences as a doctoral student was having the opportunity to teach the course Diversity Issues in Human Development four times on two different campuses. 

Lexi has accepted a role as the lead of a special education program at a public Waldorf school in Florida. She looks forward to continuing to support students, educators, and families in this role.

Maeve Collins (HDFS BA ’24) was featured as one of the graduating seniors in a UConn Today profile: https://today.uconn.edu/2024/04/maeve-collins-24-college-of-liberal-arts-and-sciences/

CT Insider recently interviewed and quoted graduate student Peter McCauley for their article UConn study: Why being outed as LGBTQ is bad for youth mental health. https://www.ctinsider.com/news/article/ct-lgbtq-outed-youth-mental-health-uconn-study-19398381.php

Graduate student Madeline Hebert was selected as a 2024 Intern in the Data and Policy Analytics Division at the CT Office of Policy and Management (OPM) for summer 2024.

Abagail Horton joined the HDFS graduate program in 2019 and completed her Ph.D. in HDFS in Spring 2024. During graduate school she worked with Dr. Beth Russell. Her first line of research was to understand the processes through which emotion regulation, stress, and relationship quality influence mental health outcomes. For example, during the pandemic, she collaborated with Dr. Beth Russell, Dr. Rachel Tambling, and other graduate students to collect data from several hundred parents nation-wide during the first few weeks of the Covid-19 pandemic. This work was one of the first to examine families’ experiences during the pandemic and revealed that caregivers experienced heightened rates of depression, anxiety, and stress as a result of the pandemic. In 2023, Abagail collaborated with Dr. Crystal Park, Dr. Beth Russell, and a clinical psychology graduate student to collect descriptive data on college students’ engagement in stress management activities, perceptions of these activities, and mental health symptoms based on apparent gender-based perceived barriers to recruitment.

Her second line of research centered around answering the question, “What works for whom and when, where, and why?” when examining mindfulness-based or school-based interventions and applying science. During graduate school, she was a team member and project manager for the evaluation of Connecticut’s 21^st Century afterschool program, a nationwide effort to reduce the race-based achievement gap in K-12 public schools. Through her work on this project, she gained many skills. For example, she worked with a large 10-year longitudinal dataset with more than 10,000 students and was granted leadership opportunities to mentor a team of junior doctoral students and undergraduate students.  She also worked with stakeholders to develop evaluation products that best fit their community needs as well as contributed to the pilot of new data collection on participating students’ social and emotional skills.

Abagail successfully defended her dissertation in March. Her mixed-methods dissertation brought a fresh lens to questions about mindfulness-based interventions. Specifically, she wrote a systematic review and proposed a mid-level theoretical model; conducted a qualitative study about early childhood educators’ stressors and perceptions of scaffolding children’s emotional development; and implemented and examined the acceptability, feasibility, and preliminary efficacy of an adapted group mindfulness-based intervention (PRISM) for early childhood educators.

In April, Abagail started a position as a Research and Evaluation Manager for the Institute for the Advancement of Community Health (IACH) at Furman University. She is looking forward to continuing working on applied research and evaluation of programs that support health and wellbeing. Outside of work, she can be found traveling, enjoying the sunshine, or spending time with her friends and family.

 

Alum Qianxia Jiang recently accepted a tenure track assistant professor position in the Department of Health Sciences, College of Health Professions and Sciences, at the University of Central Florida. Congratulations Qianxia!