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!

Congratulations to the 2024 Stamford HDFS Faculty Award Recipients, honored for their strong academic achievement, leadership, commitment to educational/intellectual growth, and participation in class: Alicja B. Kurpinowicz, Labonno Ranga, and Wendy Lopez.

Emily Fritzson is an HDFS Ph.D. candidate who will defend her dissertation and graduate in Spring 2024. She earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology from Skidmore College in 2017 and worked for two years as a research lab manager at the University of Delaware before entering the HDFS program in 2019.

Her research interests broadly encompass the health and well-being of individuals living with chronic illness, particularly cancer. Since the start of graduate school, Emily has worked on an NIH-funded, longitudinal study of resilience trajectories among over 550 newly diagnosed cancer survivors. Under the mentorship of the project lead and her academic advisor, Dr. Keith Bellizzi, she was fortunate to participate in almost every component of this project from participant recruitment to publication. At UConn, Emily has also worked with Dr. Bellizzi, Dr. Na Zhang, and Dr. Crystal Park on other projects related to the adaptation and well-being of individuals facing health-related adversity. In addition to research, Emily gained valuable teaching experience as a teaching assistant for Close Relationships Across the Lifespan and Infancy Through Adolescence and the instructor-of-record for Adulthood and Aging.

For her dissertation, Emily analyzed data from the 2021 Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS)—Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program (SEER) project, referred to as HINTS-SEER. Utilizing sophisticated data analytical methods to account for the survey design of HINTS-SEER, she examined the associations between health care providers’ patient-centered communication and health outcomes (e.g., psychological distress, physical function limitations, and general health) among adults with a history of cancer. She also explored the potentially mediating role of worry about cancer recurrence and moderating roles of pessimism and social isolation among these associations. The results of the study underscore the critical role of addressing cancer-related concerns through patient-centered communication in healthcare delivery, as these efforts can enhance psychosocial well-being and overall health outcomes among survivors of cancer.

Emily recently joined NORC at the University of Chicago as a Research Director II in their Health Sciences Research Department. She is excited to continue conducting high-quality research with a talented team of researchers and sharing findings in digestible and compelling ways at NORC.

In her free time, Emily enjoys visiting coffee shops, long walks with a friend, and working on her latest paint-by-numbers project. In the summer, she especially loves returning to her home state of Maine to spend time by the ocean and lakes with her family.

Congratulations to graduate student Caroline Salafia, who received a Conference Student Travel Award to the Society of Behavioral Medicine from the Cancer Special Interest Group!

Congratulations to Veronica Hanna-Walker, Graduate Student Recipient from CLAS for the Outstanding Senior Women Academic Achievement Award!

Congratulations to Ruth Salazar, Undergraduate Student Recipient from CLAS for the Outstanding Senior Women Academic Achievement Award!

Paige Bueckers, current HDFS major, was named the 2023-2024 BIG EAST Women’s Basketball Scholar-Athlete of the Year. She is the first Husky to do so since 2011. She also was named BIG EAST Most Outstanding Player of the Tournament for the second time. Congratulations Paige! https://uconnhuskies.com/news/2024/3/6/womens-basketball-bueckers-named-big-east-scholar-athlete-of-the-year