CRF 2018 Annual Report

2017 - 2018 ANNUAL REPORT

Our vision is to address the challenges and support the resilience of all families through research, teaching, and outreach.

The Center for Research on Families (CRF) advances interdisciplinary research aimed at increasing our understanding of the diversity, health, and well-being of families while contributing innovative and evidence-based solutions to the most pressing problems facing families.

CRF is one of the few family research centers in the country that bridges the social, behavioral, and natural sciences; thus, we are uniquely poised to initiate and support interdisciplinary collaborations that answer complex questions about today’s family and society. CRF epitomizes the land grant mission of UMass Amherst to provide teaching, research, and public service to benefit the families of the Commonwealth and nation.

Our Mission

• Promote, conduct, and translate high quality, substantive research on key issues affecting families • Teach, mentor, and support family researchers throughout their careers, from students to professors • Engage with the community to improve family functioning and inform social policy

Our Story

The Center for Research on Families has a long history and deep roots at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The Center for the Family was founded over forty years ago in the 1970s. A generous endowment given by Dorothy Dunklee Gavin (‘43) and Joseph Gavin in 1996 ensured a strong and sustainable future for the Center. In 2003, the original Center for the Family was transformed into today’s Center for Research on Families (CRF).

CRF is a joint center of the College of Natural Sciences (CNS) and the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences (SBS). Its programs are supported by CNS, SBS, the Edna Skinner and Tay Gavin Erickson

endowments, the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Engagement, grants, and alumni and corporate gifts. CRF’s unique model of collaboration serves to enhance its primary mission of supporting interdisciplinary and translational research activities on campus and in the community.

As the figure shows, families are embedded in multiple social settings and are also comprised of complex individuals that bring genes and individual differences to family systems. Thus at CRF, we see research from all disciplines as relevant to our mission.

CULTURE GOVERNMENT WORKPLACES

ANNUAL REPORT 2018

COMMUNITY

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FAMILIES

CRF MISSION, VISION, HISTORY EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OUR APPROACH CRF HIGHLIGHTS 2017-2018 PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES OF DIRECTORS

FAMILIES IN CONTEXT

2 4 5 6 7

ADVANCING RESEARCH ON FAMILIES FAMILY RESEARCH SCHOLARS PROGRAM 2017-2018 RESEARCH ACTIVITY 2017-2018 SCHOLAR FEATURES FACULTY AFFILIATE HIGHLIGHTS

8-9 10 11-12 13

CRF IN SPRINGFIELD FROM HOMEVISITING TO THE CLASSROOM AND BACK PILOT GRANTS PARTNERSHIPS IN SPRINGFIELD

14 15-16 17

PROVIDING METHODOLOGY TRAINING AND CONSULTATION NEW METHODOLOGY PROGRAM DIRECTOR CRF METHODOLOGY PROGRAM CRF METHODOLOGY WORKSHOPS AND TRAININGS CONSULTING STAFF AND STUDENTS

18 18-19 20 21

TRAINING THE NEXT GENERATION OF FAMILY RESEARCHERS STUDENT FAMILY RESEARCH AWARDS PROGRAM NEW STUDENT GRANT WRITING PROGRAM STUDENT RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS STUDENT FEATURES

22-23 23 24-25 26-27

COLLABORATIONS AND PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT TAY GAVIN ERICKSON LECTURE SERIES RUDD ADOPTION RESEARCH PROGRAM INTERDISCIPLINARY COLLABORATIONS STRESS RESEARCH GROUP

28-29 30 31 32

CRF FACULTY, STAFF, AND STUDENTS

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*This report describes CRF activities undertaken from June 2017 through May 2018.

INDIVIDUAL BIOLOGY

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DESIGN: Angela Russo CONTENT COORDINATOR: Gisele Litalien, Faith English PHOTOGRAPHY: Lisa Quinones, Paul Franz, Pablo Robles

ANNUAL REPORT 2018

Our Vision

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AND MEN T

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COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

METHODOLOGY

FACULTY

CONSULTING ACADEMIC-YEAR SEMINARS SUMMER WORKSHOPS GRANT SUPPORT PATHWAY TO CAREERS

FAMILY RESEARCH SCHOLARS PROGRAM STRESS RESEARCH WORKING GROUP

SPRINGFIELD INITIATIVE TAY GAVIN ERICKSON LECTURE SERIES PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT PROJECT

STUDENTS

POLICY

STUDENT RESEARCH SCHOLARS PROGRAM GRADUATE STUDENT GRANT WRITING PROGRAM GRADUATE ASSISTANTSHIPS STUDENT AWARDS

LOCAL, STATE, AND NATIONAL

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ANNUAL REPORT 2017

ANNUAL REPORT 2018

Director, Center for Research on Families

H AND M ET

T EN

These are just a few of the highlights of the important and innovative activities happening at CRF. I am continually awed and inspired by the energy, commitment, and hard work of our CRF team and the many scholars and affiliates who bring our mission to life every day. Our impact over the past year has been felt in the country, in the state, and in our own back yard. I look forward to building our efforts on all fronts in support and on behalf of all families who are doing the hard work every day to raise the next generation.

RC A E

EM

This year, under the direction of Professor Rebecca Spencer, we have started a new scholars program in grant writing for graduate students, which is built on our successful faculty scholars program. We believe developing these grant writing skills early in graduate students’ careers will set them up for successful trajectories in their programs of research.

We also had the opportunity to partner with the Children’s Trust to teach an exciting new course entitled Risk and Resilience in the lives of First-Time Young Parents that was offered to Healthy Family Home Visitors as well as UMass students. This innovative new class created many new bridges: bridges linking UMass and Springfield, bridges linking direct service experiences with families to theory and research underlying those practices, and bridges for home visitors to develop new career trajectories. We are excited to continue this partnership.

OUR APPROACH

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Over the past year, CRF has funded faculty and student projects focused on addressing problems of opioid use in new mothers and potential treatments, challenges immigrants face as they return to Mexico in greater numbers than ever before, and the effects of pollution and toxin exposures on asthma rates in children. We are proud to support these critical efforts to address pressing social issues by understanding their impact and proposing evidencebased solutions.

Professor Holly Laws, CRF Methodology Director, is leading new efforts to provide program evaluation services for our community partners. This year she is working with the Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts, evaluating a leadership development program for young women ages 12-24, to develop future leaders in the Springfield community.

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It has been an exciting year at the Center for Research on Families. New grants have been funded, our collaborations in Springfield have grown, a new program in grant writing for graduate students has been started, and our methodology program is developing some exciting new initiatives. This is all happening against a national backdrop of tremendous challenges facing families; the daily headlines remind us regularly of these challenges with grim news about the opioid epidemic, immigrant rights, community violence, and economic inequality, to name just a few. CRF scholars are at the forefront of research in these areas. CRF focuses not only on supporting research to better understand how these issues affect children and families, but also translating these findings into action and policy at the community, state, and federal levels.

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Dear Friends,

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CENTER FOR RESEARCH ON FAMILIES

PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES OF DIRECTORS

2017-2018 Highlights 1) Promoting and conducting high-quality, substantive research on key issues affecting family life •

Six 2017-2018 CRF Family Research Scholars (FRS) met biweekly to develop competitive grants through intensive faculty and peer feedback, targeted instruction on the review process, and methodology support.

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Eleven 2015 and 2016 Scholars continued to meet as a group or with the CRF director to revise/submit additional grants.

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Twelve CRF Family Research Scholars submitted 14 grants totaling $18,356,663.

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CRF has active grants totaling $13,185,527.

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Eight student researchers participated in the second year of our Student Scholars Research Seminar, modelled after our faculty program. Students were assisted with developing research and writing plans, fine-tuning their papers and proposals, and refining their methods plans.

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CRF is sponsoring a new pilot Student Grant Writing Program for graduate students. Six students were selected to work under the leadership of Professor Rebecca Spencer to prepare NSF and NIH fellowship applications.

For the eleventh year, CRF sponsored the Stress Research Group. Twenty researchers met regularly to discuss and examine the biological, behavioral, and social indices and outcomes of stress. The Stress group submitted a training grant to NSF this year.

ANNUAL REPORT 2018

2) Teaching, mentoring, and supporting family researchers throughout their careers (from students to professors)

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CRF awarded $25,800 in Student Family Research Grants to eleven undergraduate and graduate students.

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CRF provided approximately 305 hours of formal advanced statistical and methodological consultation to UMass faculty and graduate student researchers, researchers at other universities, and community organizations.

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2017 Summer Methodology Workshops drew 57 participants from 40 different academic institutions from 20 states, as well as international participants from the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Korea, and Australia.

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CRF and the Institute for Social Science Research (ISSR) offered a Pre-Scholars Workshop to advise new faculty in grant preparedness and in the application process.

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CRF partnered with the Rudd Adoption Research Program to offer the highly successful 2018 Rudd Adoption Research New Worlds of Adoption Conference, “The Future of Adoption: Beyond Safety to Well-Being.”

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CRF partnered with nine centers, departments, schools, and colleges on campus.

3) Engaging with the community to address and inform outreach and policy on issues critical to the well-being of families •

CRF hosted four public lectures by renowned experts through the Tay Gavin Erickson Lecture Series.

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CRF collaborated with the Children’s Trust (CT) to develop and offer a new course, “Risk and Resilience in the Lives of Young Families,” for home visitors from across the state in the fall of 2017 at the UMass Springfield Center. The course was very successful and will be replicated in coming years with the goal of developing a pathway to college for home visitors.

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One CRF Scholar participated in the Public Engagement Fellows Program (PEP) to develop skills in translating their research to enhance families’ lives.

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CRF disseminated 41 news articles highlighting our affiliates’ research in major media outlets, including National Public Radio, Time magazine, New York Times, Huffington Post, Chicago Tribune, The Atlantic, The Guardian, and others.

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CRF partnered with the Healthy Development Initiative to award two $15,000 Pilot Grant opportunities for researchers to partner with community organizations to address pressing problems in Springfield, MA, and also to develop pilot grants for new collaborations whose proposed work has a clear developmental emphasis.

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Dr. Perry-Jenkins served as the program chair for The National Council on Family Relations’ (NCFR) Annual Conference in November 2017.

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CRF participated in the Maternal Child Health Working Group Taskforce to develop partnerships between researchers and community providers in Springfield. CRF provided assistance in mapping community resources.

Maureen Perry-Jenkins, CRF Director • Executive Board, Contemporary Council on Families • Program Chair, National Council on Family Relations Annual Conference, 2017 • Co-PI: A Prenatal Intervention for Low-Income Parents. UMass Medical Center for Clinical • • • •

and Translational Science - Life Science Moment Fund Grant NIH Review Panel Member Active member of Project ACCCES, supporting UMass-Springfield community-based research partnerships Numerous national presentations on work-family research Editorial Board of Journal of Marriage and Family, Community, Work & Family, and Journal of Family Theory & Review

Aline Sayer, CRF Methodology Program Co-Director • Served as methodological consultant on ten research grants across the following • • •

agencies: NIH, NSF, IES (Institute of Education Sciences) and CIHR (Canadian Institute for Health Research) Inter-University Consortium for Social & Political Research, Summer Program in Quantitative Methods Advisory Board Institute of Education Sciences, Scientific Review Panel, Early Intervention and Early Childhood Education Workshops on multilevel modeling and structural equation modeling at Yale’s Center for Inequality and the Life Course, the Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati, and Interact for Health

Holly Laws, CRF Methodology Program Co-Director • Served as methodological consultant on research grants for NIDA, NIA, and NIMH • PI on an early career development award examining gender differences in partnership • •

support of post-traumatic recovery for women and men in military service and their longterm relationship partners Numerous national presentations on family research and methodology Conducted workshops on multilevel modeling for longitudinal, intensive longitudinal, and dyadic applications for the Intra-University Consortium for Social and Political Research at Syracuse University and the North American Chapter for Psychotherapy Research

ANNUAL REPORT 2018

CRF has accomplished much through our three-pronged approach of research, teaching, and outreach in 2017-2018:

2017-2018

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ADVANCING RESEARCH ON FAMILIES

2017-18 FAMILY RESEARCH SCHOLARS Aline Gubrium Community Health Education, School of Public Health and Health Sciences Project: Testing a Digital Storytelling Intervention to Address Perinatal Depression in Young Mothers

Family Research Scholars Program health, political science, biology, and neuroscience.

Despite federal funds becoming tighter nationally, the FRS program has significantly increased federal research support for family research at UMass. As funding for research becomes more difficult to obtain, centers like CRF become increasingly valuable to family researchers.

Family Research Scholars participate in a year-long interdisciplinary seminar that includes:

• Presentations and discussions of the Scholars’ developing proposals • Concrete instruction in grant writing and understanding of funding • • • • • • • •

ANNUAL REPORT 2018

•

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agencies Strategies for successful proposal submission Assistance accessing the resources of the University Individualized methodology consultation Facilitated peer review throughout the formulation and writing process Staff support at all stages of grant submission Accountability for reaching writing goals Consultation with nationally recognized experts who are hosted by CRF through the Tay Gavin Erickson Lecture Series Guest speakers on topics identified by scholars such as budgets, foundation and corporate grants Continued support through the summer and following year as needed

SEMINAR FACILITATORS Maureen Perry-Jenkins, CRF Director and Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences Aline Sayer and Holly Laws, Co-Directors of the CRF methodology programs

Krystal Pollitt Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health and Health Sciences Project: Early Life Air Pollutant Exposures and Fetal Growth

Ning Zhang

Aline Gubrium

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Jamie Rowen Legal Studies, College of Social and Behavioral Sciences Project: Thank You for Your Service: The Purpose and Practice of Veterans Treatment Courts

I have been so very pleased to be a part of the Family Research Scholars

Jeffrey Starns Psychological and Brain Sciences, College of Natural Sciences Project: Bayesian Reasoning as a Life Skill

Program. The program has provided me with an invaluable opportunity to receive constructive and supportive mentoring and feedback from my

Kalpana Poudel-Tandukar College of Nursing Project: Reducing Stress, Anxiety, and Depressive Symptoms via a Family-Centered Preventative Intervention for Immigrants: A Randomized Controlled Feasibility Trial

Kalpana Poudel-Tandukar

Krystal Pollitt

colleagues across the University,

Ning Zang School of Public Health and Health Sciences Project: Individualization and Bias in Mobility Care Practices for Obese Nursing Home Residents

which has helped me immensely as

The 2018-2019 Family Research Scholars have been selected on the basis of their promising work in family-related research:

I worked on three grant proposals

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over the course of the year. This

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FRS Program model is one to be emulated.”

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—— Aline Gubrium

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Jamie Rowen

Jeffrey Starns

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Youngbin Kwak, Psychological and Brain Sciences, College of Natural Sciences Sarah Fefer, Student Development, College of Education Shannon Roberts, Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, College of Engineering Mark Pachucki, Sociology, College of Social and Behavioral Sciences Krishna Poudel, Health Promotion and Policy, School of Public Health and Health Sciences Mary Paterno, College of Nursing

ANNUAL REPORT 2018

Since 2003, CRF has provided selected faculty with time, expert consultation, technical expertise, and peer mentorship to prepare large grant proposals for intensive family research. The program has supported and facilitated interdisciplinary family research in a wide variety of disciplines, such as psychology, anthropology, nursing, economics, sociology, education, environmental

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RESEARCH ACTIVITY 2017-2018

Kalpana Poudel-Tandukar

GRANT ACTIVITY

FAMILY RESEARCH SCHOLAR 2017-2018

SUBMITTED RESEARCH GRANTS Richard Pilsner, Environmental Health Sciences National Institutes of Health - $3,568,812 Paternal preconception phthalates and reproductive health - potential mediation through sperm DNA methylation (resubmission) Mariana Pereira, Psychological and Brain Sciences National Institutes of Health - $1,942,312 Postpartum Depression and Parenting: Circuit Level Transcriptomic and neurochemical mechanisms Ezekiel Kimball, Educational Policy, Research & Administration National Science Foundation - $806,355 CAREER: An Examination of Psychosocial Predictors of STEM Aspirations and Attainment among Students with Disabilities Sofiya Alhassan, Kinesiology National Institutes of Health - $3,922,150 Physical Activity, Diet, and Sleep/Screen time (PADS) during Early Childhood

ANNUAL REPORT 2018

CTST UMASS Medical Life Sciences Moment Fund- $25,000 Establishing Worcester-Amherst Health Policy Research Lab

ACTIVE RESEARCH Linda Isbell, Psychological and Brain Sciences Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality - $1,712,843 Emotional Influences on Diagnostic Error in Emergency Medicine: An Experimental Approach to Understand Diagnostic Failure and Facilitate Improvement for Patients with and without Mental Illness Brigitte Holt, Anthropology National Science Foundation - $793,815 Collaborative Research: Bone strength and Physical Activity over the life course in a Physically Active Contemporary Pre-industrial Population Gerald Downes, Biology National Science Foundation - $757,746 Collaborative Research: GABA A Receptor Control of Hyperactivity in Developing Zebrafish

Krystal Pollitt, Environmental Science Johnson & Johnson - $150,000 WiSTEM2D Scholars Program

Nilanjana Dasgupta, Psychological and Brain Sciences National Science Foundation - $1,499,993 and $539,822 (sub-award) Peer influences on adolescent’s self-concept, achievement, and future aspirations in science and mathematics: Does student gender and race matter?

Aline Gubrium, Community Health Education Health Resources and Services Administration - $898,869 Testing a Digital Storytelling Intervention to Address Perinatal Depression in Young Mothers

Agnes Lacreuse, Psychological and Brain Sciences National Institutes of Health - $1,545,557 and $111,892 (sub-award) Sex Differences in Cognitive and Brain Aging: A Primate Model

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation - $350,000 Piloting a Narrative Intervention for Rural Women with Substance Use Disorder

National Institutes of Health - $443,755 Sleep, hot flashes and cognition: a nonhuman primate model for menopausal symptoms

Laura Vandenberg, Environmental Health Sciences National Institutes of Health - $2,519,872 Xenoestrogens, lactogenesis and milk production: role of estrogen receptors

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National Institutes of Health - $130,106 Systematic Assessment of Geriatric Elements in Long-Term Care for Patients with AF-Sage LTC-AF

Kirby Deater-Deckard, Psychological and Brain Sciences (for CRF Stress Research Group) National Science Foundation - $2,999,522 NRT: Innovations in Stress Research: An Interdisciplinary Research Traineeship Program Kalpana Poudel-Tandukar, Nursing National Institutes of Health - $731,648 Reducing stress, anxiety, and depressive symptoms via a family-centered preventative intervention for immigrants: A randomized controlled feasibility trial Jennifer McDermott, Psychological and Brain Sciences National Institutes of Health - $159,500 Biomarkers of Social Reward Processing in Early Childhood

Dr. Kalpana Poudel-Tandukar is an assistant professor in the College of Nursing. Prior to joining UMass, Poudel-Tandukar was an assistant professor at Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan. She holds a Certificate in General Medicine and Master’s degrees in Public Health and Sociology and Anthropology from Tribhuvan University in Nepal, a Master’s degree in Primary Health Care from Flinders University in South Australia, and a PhD in International Health from the University of Tokyo in Japan.

Kalpana Poudel-Tandukar’s research focuses on identifying sociocultural factors that increase immigrant stress in order to develop effective community-based strategies to address these factors. She aims to develop culturally tailored, family-based interventions to reduce stress and depression in immigrants using a communitybased participatory tool of intervention mapping. Using this approach not only engages the community of immigrants in all aspects of decision-making, but also empowers the community to take a lead in improving their mental health.

population in countries where they resettle, despite experiencing a higher burden of mental health problems. Her current research identifies socio-cultural barriers and enablers to seeking mental health services among Bhutanese refugees. She aims to reduce mental health burdens and increase resilience among Bhutanese refugees in Massachusetts by designing an evidence-based, culturally tailored intervention.

“CRF hosted a Tay Gavin Erickson lecture and consulting session with Dr. Steven Hollon from Vanderbilt University. I got great help from Dr. Hollon and he became a co-investigator in my grant,” said Poudel-Tandukar. Dr. Poudel-Tandukar received critical methodological support as well as feedback on her grant proposal from CRF Director and FRS scholars. “I have received support on how to apply scientific evidence in a culturally appropriate way and to evaluate an intervention using a scientific approach,” said Poudel-Tandukar. “CRF helped me translate science to practice. I came to CRF with the ingredients and CRF helped me turn those ingredients into a nice recipe!”

Dr. Poudel-Tandukar’s current research is motivated by the evidence that immigrants seek fewer mental health services than the general

Jacquie Kurland, Communication Disorders National Institutes of Health - $1,757,591 Overcoming Learned Non-Use in Chronic Aphasia: Behavioral, fMRI, and QoL Outcomes Rebecca Spencer, Psychological and Brain Sciences National Institutes of Health - $2,017,722 The Benefits of Naps on Cognitive, Emotional and Motor Learning in Pre-Schoolers National Institutes of Health - $1,904,791 Sleep-dependent Memory Processing in Older Adults David Arnold, Psychological and Brain Sciences Overdeck Family Foundation - $100,000 Fostering Kindergarten Readiness in Pre-schoolers from Low-Income Communities with an Educational App

Kalpana Poudel-Tandukar, center, talks with fellow 2017-18 Family Research Scholars Jamie Rowen (L) and Jeffrey Starns (R).

ANNUAL REPORT 2018

Grants submitted: 14 totaling $18,356,663 Active grants: 10 totaling $13,185,527 Grants submitted since inception: 161 Grants awarded since inception: 49 Grants funded amount since inception: $22,680,091

Ning Zhang, Health Promotion and Policy Bristol Meyers Squibb - $52,517 Apixaban use in Long Term Care for Atrial Fibrillation (Apixaban LTC-AF)

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Krystal Pollitt FAMILY RESEARCH SCHOLAR 2017-2018

While completing her doctoral studies at King’s College London, Pollitt redirected her focus toward environmental health sciences in order to apply her love of high-precision data analysis to a public health approach.

ANNUAL REPORT 2018

As a 2017-2018 Family Research Scholar, Pollitt finds that having a regularly scheduled time to meet with other researchers has helped her better communicate why her research is so essential to the public. Pollitt plans to study the ways in which cumulative, environmental factors impact disease, with the ultimate goal of developing strategies for people to better avoid certain exposures and the negative health outcomes associated with them. “Exposure to air pollution is unavoidable. Here in Amherst the air is clean, but many people don’t have that luxury,” explains Pollitt. Asthma rates among children in Springfield (20%) are nearly twice the state-wide rates (11%), and there are ethnic/racial disparities in asthma-related emergency department visits.

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Pollitt’s team developed a novel, low-cost wearable wristband that will gather extensive data about personal environmental exposures.

The Fresh Air wristbands are simple, inexpensive, and waterproof and capable of gathering hundreds of pollutants. Subjects wear them for periods that coincide with the points in time measured in the studies and then they are mailed to her lab for analysis.

Dr. Pollitt is collecting data in pediatric practices in Springfield, MA, and through the Healthy Development Initiative, a communityRight: Krystal Pollitt fastens a Fresh Air wristband to a student in Springfield, Mass.

focused research program. Her team will capture data that will allow them to contrast environmental stressors across mothers of children with and without asthma. She is also proposing a study of air pollutant exposures during pregnancy to understand how early life exposures influence fetal development. Pollitt hopes that improved assessment of exposure using the wristband across life stages (pregnancy, childhood) has the potential to produce a more comprehensive understanding of the outdoor and indoor air pollutant mixtures that mediate disease development as well as their relative effect.

FACULTY AFFILIATE HIGHLIGHTS 2017-2018 Ning Zhang (FRS ’17-’18) published a journal article that examines obesity status, falls, and hip fractures among nursing home residents. The article, which appears in the Journal of Patient-Centered Research and Reviews, showed that mildly obese and severely obese patients were less likely to fall and less likely to experience hip fractures, compared to non-obese patients. Zhang concluded that obesity is associated with a reduced risk of falls and hip fractures and that future studies need to be performed to understand why this association exists and what it means for the care of obese nursing home residents.

Brigitte Holt (FRS ’16-’17) facilitated a hands-on opportunity for students to research medieval skeletal remains from an 11th-century medieval cemetery outside the church of San Paragorio in Noli, Italy. When she learned that a medieval cemetery had been dug up for restoration work, she sought to officially borrow the bones for study at UMass Amherst.

After seven years of negotiations with Italian antiquities and export authorities, Holt received permission to pack 41 boxes of bones, the remains of between 60 and 100 individuals, and put them on a British Airways flight to Boston. Six undergraduate students have spent the fall semester cleaning and developing an inventory of the bones for future study. Holt and her students regard the skeletal remains of the medieval residents of Noli with immense respect. “We are fortunate to have this collection,” says Holt. “Now we can begin to tell their stories.”

Aline Gubrium (FRS ’17-’18) was elected to serve as ChairElect of the Sexual and Reproductive Health Section of the American Public Health Association (APHA). She begins serving immediately as the Chair Elect for a one-year term, and will take over the position of Chair beginning in December 2018.

Krista Harper (FRS ’08-’09) took part in an international graduate student workshop on “Grassroots: Economies, Politics, and Culture” on May 28-30, 2017 at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) Centre Norbert Élias in Marseille, France. Along with colleague Jacqueline Urla, Harper presented at the “Markets and Mobilizations” graduate seminar.

Nilanjana Dasgupta (FRS ‘06-’07 & ‘12-’13) was interviewed for the National Science Foundation’s Women’s History Month Feature. She discussed how one focus of her work has been on psychological and learning environment characteristics that influence young women’s entry into STEM-based academic majors. She found that the genderbased context of the classroom or lecture hall, as well as the gender of teachers, advisors, and mentors, all play a role in women’s interest in STEM. Hal Grotevant (FRS ’12-’13) received the Elizabeth Hurlock Beckman Award for 2017, which recognizes “educators who have inspired their former students to create an organization which has demonstrably conferred a benefit on the community at large.”

ANNUAL REPORT 2018

Krystal Pollitt, PhD, is an Assistant Professor and Commonwealth College Professor of Environmental Health Sciences. A chemical engineer by training, Dr. Pollitt focused on examining atmospheric chemistry in graduate school by using high-end analytical tools. She investigated the various components of smog to determine their influence on the climate and to identify their negative impacts on health.

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PILOT GRANTS

CRF IN SPRINGFIELD From Home Visiting to the Classroom and Back

ANNUAL REPORT 2018

ANNUAL REPORT 2017

Students made profound connections by grappling with the theory and research questions that inform their everyday work with families: What factors impact the decision to breastfeed?

What is the best way to work with families dealing with both trauma and substance abuse? How can families build their resilience in the face of challenges? What is unique about adolescent parenting? How does father involvement impact

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outcomes for children? Numerous faculty from UMass Amherst and Baystate as well as community practitioners inspired the students by sharing their research and practice. Students developed exciting projects that will be used to enhance their work with colleagues and families. UMass students incorporated the eye-opening field experiences of their peers into their new understanding of the challenges facing first-time young families.

The course was designed as the first step towards creating a pathway to college for professionals who have intensive fieldbased knowledge but often lack the opportunity to earn college degrees. Danita Gordon, a home visitor from Fall River, said “This course was challenging, to say the least, but it was the most rewarding experience …I gained the confidence to reach for more educational opportunities. I am forever grateful for all that I learned during my time with you all at UMass Amherst. For me it was life changing.” The Children’s Trust and CRF plan to offer the course again along with similar courses to their home visitors across the state.

Reducing Depression and Stress in Low-income New Mothers and their Partners CRF Director, Dr. Maureen Perry-Jenkins, has launched an exciting and innovative pilot project that aims to reduce depression and stress among low-income new mothers and their partners early in pregnancy. “We’ve always known that stress can have negative impacts on our health, but the latest literature is really showing that stress prenatally is very detrimental in terms of long-term health of both mothers and infants. Thus, the aim of our intervention is to reduce stress in the second trimester of pregnancy to enhance parental well-being and child outcomes,” she explains.

Currently, there are great disparities in the rates of pre-and postnatal depression among low-income and middle-class mothers, with low-income mothers experiencing significantly poorer mental health. Reasons for these disparities in well-being include both economic and social stressors, such as financial insecurity, poor healthcare, and lack of social support, which are all risk factors for mothers’ and fathers’ mental health and the healthy development of their children.

With funding from the UMass Medical School Clinical Translational Science Program, Co-Principal Investigators Maureen Perry-

Jenkins, PhD, and Nancy Byatt, DO, MBA, from UMass Medical School are partnering with Square One and the Children’s Trust, two leading parenting education programs.

The intervention project focuses on supporting low-income couples through the transition to parenthood by reducing prenatal stress, depression, and anxiety. Each cohort includes groups of eight expectant parents who attend weekly, two hourlong parenting groups over the course of six weeks. Sessions include information about choices in childbirth, information about newborn care, stress reduction techniques such as mindfulness and meditation as well as support around strengthening the co-parenting relationship. Partnerships with Square One and the Children’s Trust allow them to build an intervention within a sustainable structure in the Springfield community aimed at supporting vulnerable families around the birth of a child.

Drs. Perry-Jenkins and Byatt have completed their work with the first cohort of parents and will begin data analysis in the Fall of 2018. They plan on applying for a larger grant next year in the hope of expanding their research.

ANNUAL REPORT 2018

Risk and Resilience in the Lives of First-Time, Young Parents, an innovative, 3-credit course that was developed and taught at the UMass Springfield Center in the fall of 2017, brought together UMass undergraduates with Healthy Families’ home visitors from across the state to apply a research-based framework to topics critical to working with young parents. Dr. Maureen Perry-Jenkins, Director of CRF and Professor of Psychology, and Gisele Litalien, Associate Director of CRF, collaborated with Meg Manning and Lee MacKinnon, family training specialists at the Children’s Trust, a statewide agency whose goal is to prevent child abuse.

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CRF and the Healthy Development Initiative Award Two Pilot Grants in 2017

ANNUAL REPORT 2018

Mary Paterno, PhD, CNM, Assistant Professor of Nursing at UMass, along with Elizabeth Peacock-Chambers, MD, Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at UMass Medical School’s Baystate Campus, have begun their project titled “Maternal Perceptions of Opiate Addiction and Child Development Services from Pregnancy Through the First Year Postpartum.” Drs. Paterno and Peacock-Chambers aim to understand the perceptions of women in recovery from opiate addiction in relation to the continuity and gaps in addiction services from pregnancy to one year postpartum. Using this data, they propose to develop an integrated, interdisciplinary approach to providing addiction, maternal health, and child development services to support parenting women and their children who are affected by opiate addiction. To date they have made connections with multiple agencies throughout the greater Springfield area that offer services related to addiction, behavioral health, and Early Intervention in order to promote the study and maximize recruitment of this hard-to-reach population. They have interviewed nine mothers in Springfield and Holyoke, and are in the process of coding these qualitative findings while continuing recruitment efforts.

Krystal Pollitt, PhD, an Assistant Professor of Environmental Health Sciences at UMass, will join Sarita Hudson, Director of Programs and Development for Springfield’s Partners for a Healthier Community, to develop their project, “The Fresh Air Project: Using the Exposome to Personalize Asthma Management.” Pollitt and Hudson seek to understand the prevalent environmental exposures across children and develop novel personalized control strategies that reduce exposure to these triggers of asthma. The long-term goal of the Fresh Air Project is to decrease hospital usage for asthma in Springfield.

The researchers have been working with the Public Health Institute of Western Massachusetts to recruit children into the study. To date, they have recruited and visited the homes of six children on two occasions to profile the exposome of children using an integrated set of tools and technologies.

These technologies capture temporal, spatial, and personal variations across environmental exposures, using (1) a low-cost wearable monitor which measures a broad spectrum of organic environmental pollutants that trigger asthma (The Fresh Air Wristband); (2) questionnaires about nutrition and stress; (3) photos to overview personal care and cleaning products used at home; and (4) settled house dust samples from the child’s home to profile allergens. The researchers held a public event on May 29th at the UMass Springfield Center to present an overview of their outcomes and to run demonstrations of green cleaning products and cooking methods that reduce air pollution exposure.

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Mary Paterno

Elizabeth Peacock-Chambers

Sarita Hudson

Krystal Pollitt

The UMass Center at Springfield.

CRF Partnerships in Springfield Springfield, the fourth-largest city in New England, shares many strengths and challenges that profoundly impact families. Our goal is to partner with agencies and community leaders in Springfield to support their important work building resiliency across the city; our aim is to provide the strengths that CRF and UMass Amherst can bring to the table in terms of education, research, and outreach. CRF has set up an outreach office in Springfield and we have begun to establish a strong research and teaching presence in Springfield through initiatives based at the UMass Springfield Center.

CRF participates in the Maternal-Child Health Network (MCHN), one of the working groups connected to Project ACCCES: A Collaboration to Develop Capacity for Community-Engaged Research in Springfield. Project ACCCES was initiated by a PCORI grant (Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute), to Sarah Goff, Associate

Professor Baystate Medical Center, Elissa Griffith-Johnson, Patient Representative, Kathleen Szegda, Director of Community Research and Evaluation at Partners for a Healthier Community, and Bettye Anderson Frederic, former director of Springfield Department of Health and Human Services. The project is aimed at building capacity for community-engaged research. The MCHN working group of Project ACCCES includes providers, researchers, and other stakeholders and focuses on issues such as premature birth and teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted infection, and disability. Members have identified many sources of these health issues, including lack of access to resources such as healthy food and transportation, economic factors including poverty and lack of jobs, difficulties dealing with the healthcare system and insurance, racism, low literacy, crime, and incarceration. CRF is sharing in efforts to respond to the need for program evaluation that has been identified by community partners.

ANNUAL REPORT 2018

The Center for Research on Families (CRF) and the Healthy Development Initiative (HDI) awarded two $15,000 pilot grants to address pressing concerns identified by Springfield families, agencies, and community leaders as part of our Springfield partnership.

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PROVIDING METHODOLOGY TRAINING AND CONSULTATION Holly Laws Joins CRF as New Methodology Program Director CRF welcomes Holly Laws, PhD, as the new Director of CRF’s Methodology Program.

Dr. Laws is an expert in analyzing and interpreting data for family-related research and she has codirected the program with Dr. Aline Sayer during the 2017-18 academic year. Dr. Laws received her PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and began her methodology consulting as a grad student under the mentorship of Dr. Aline Sayer.

including longitudinal, dyadic, and daily diary applications.

She received a Career Development Award from the VA’s Rehabilitation Research and Development service, a study using dyadic methodology to examine and compare associations between relationship quality and well-being in male and female veterans and their relationship partners.

Formerly an Associate Research Scientist in Yale University’s Psychiatry Department, Dr. Laws also serves as a research psychologist in the VA Connecticut Healthcare System. Her research focuses on using novel statistical methodologies to examine processes within close relationships implicated in mental and physical health. She has conducted multiple methodological workshops on the topic of multilevel modeling,

“CRF offers specialized methodology workshops--we want to continue this and expand it on a national level either through consulting or by providing online tools,” says Laws. “We want CRF to become a resource for researchers who are working with family data and need support in addressing its complexity.

This is our niche: working with the dyadic models and family data.”

Dr. Laws is excited to be given the opportunity to grow CRF’s methodology offerings and aims to position the center as a national leader in family research methods across multiple disciplines. She brings fresh eyes coupled with an understanding of CRF’s history and vision, and has used her first year to identify new areas of growth in our on-campus methodological services. In addition, she is exploring innovative ways to extend our methodological expertise in support of the wider community.

In 2017-2018, CRF’s Methodology Consultation Services provided individual research and data consultation on the following topics: stress and health outcomes in relationships, an intervention in Inuit communities designed to support adolescents and prevent suicide attempts, gender stereotypes in mathematics instruction, and a study of gender differences in aging and cognition in marmosets.

MCS has also expanded to partner with other areas of the campus research community, providing services to departments such as Psychological & Brain Sciences, Kinesiology, Anthropology, Community Health Education, Environmental Health Sciences, Nursing, Nutrition, and the School Psychology and Higher Education divisions in the School of Education.

to research questions of interest to those studying social and developmental processes.

Consulting Expertise

Consulting services are provided by a team of faculty, co-led this year by our outgoing director, Dr. Aline Sayer, and our new director, Holly Laws. This team also includes CRF methodology staff and advanced graduate students. They offer consulting in all stages of research, including: (a) issues in study design, measurement, and sampling, (b) power analysis, (c) data analysis, (d) training in the use of software packages, and (e) writing and editing methodology sections of manuscripts and grant proposals. All consultants have expertise in multilevel modeling, a type of data analysis appropriate for accounting for the nesting of measures within families, and for the complex longitudinal modeling of developmental processes common in observational longitudinal studies.

New Directions and Collaborations

Program Evaluation MCS is exploring the possibility of providing evaluation services to community organizations. As a first step, this year MCS has partnered with The Women’s Fund to evaluate a program they are conducting in Springfield to promote leadership among young women. We are also working with the Maternal Child Health Partnership to provide student assistance for evaluations.

quantitative methods for analyzing non-experimental data that arise in studies of families and dyads, with an emphasis on multilevel modeling, structural equation modeling, and analysis of nested and longitudinal data. CRF methodology training and consultation have supported many publications and grant applications relevant to research on families.

In spring 2018, CRF MCS, along with the Statistical Consulting and Collaboration Services (SCCS) consulting center in the Department of Math & Statistics, the methodological arm of the Institute for Social Science Research (ISSR), and the Computational Social Science Institute (CSSI), cosponsored the Social Science Statistics Reading Group. The interdisciplinary group of faculty and graduate students met weekly to discuss issues relating to the application of advanced statistical models

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CRF’s Methodology Consulting Services (MCS) provides study design and statistical analysis to scholars at UMass and at other universities, as well as professionals from the public and private sector.

Social Science Statistics Reading Group

CRF Methodology Program Since 2005, CRF’s Methodology Program has been a resource for consultation and training in advanced statistical and methodological techniques that are relevant to family research.

The Methodology Program offers training through academicyear seminars, summer workshops held in collaboration with University of Michigan’s Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), and individualized methodology consulting. Our instructors have particular expertise in

Methodology Consultation Overview

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For thirteen years, CRF’s trainings in advanced statistical and methodological techniques have attracted national and international family researchers to the summer methodology workshops held on campus. Researchers have come to depend on CRF’s consistent menu of relevant and intensive trainings.

Through CRF’s affiliation, UMass serves as a satellite site for the prestigious Summer Institute in Quantitative Methods organized by the University of Michigan’s Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), providing four weeks of intensive training. Participants consistently rate their experiences very highly, indicating that CRF is meeting an important need in the field.

CRF 2017 SUMMER METHODOLOGY WORKSHOPS Regression Models for Categorical Outcomes: Specification, Estimation, and Interpretation Dr. J. Scott Long, Indiana University Group-Based Trajectory Modeling for the Medical and Social Sciences Dr. Daniel Nagin, Carnegie-Mellon University Dr. Thomas Loughran, University of Maryland, College Park Analyzing Intensive Longitudinal Data Dr. Jean-Philippe Laurenceau, University of Delaware Dr. Niall Bolger, Columbia University Hierarchical Linear Modeling I: Introduction Dr. Aline Sayer, University of Massachusetts Amherst Dr. Holly Laws, Yale University

Methodology Seminars The Methodology Program of the Center sponsored a seminar series on statistical and research methodology topics relevant to family research. All seminars were designed to appeal to a broad audience and attract researchers from many disciplines, including criminology, clinical psychology, medicine, economics, computer science, and public health.

ANNUAL REPORT 2018

Modeling Mediational Processes in Multilevel Data Instructor: Alice Coyne FEBRUARY 16, 2018

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This workshop provided participants with an introduction to the multilevel structural equation modeling framework, with a focus on how to conduct multilevel mediation analyses.

Mediational analysis is one of the core methods for researchers interested in characterizing causal and indirect sequences or processes, yet popular mediation analysis tools do not easily accommodate clustered data (e.g., individuals within families, students within schools, repeated measures within individuals). Multilevel structural equation modeling (MLSEM) is a flexible statistical methodology that can model mediational processes in clustered data.

Targeted Recruitment Using Facebook Instructor: Rachel Herman MARCH 2, 2018 The instructor introduced the Work and Family Transitions Project lab’s experience with this recruitment strategy, provided concrete guidelines for how to use Facebook’s recruitment interface, and fielded questions from interested researchers about how to apply this novel tool to their own studies in order to recruit difficult-to-reach populations for their studies.

Early Intervention Assessment Co-sponsored by Developmental Disabilities and Human Services (DDHS) Program Instructor: Kathleen McAuslin MAY 4, 2018 The workshop offered an introduction to the Battelle Developmental Inventory, Second Edition (BDI-2).

Participants learned about the contexts in which the BDI-2 is used, as well as how to administer and score the BDI2. Participants who may use the BDI-2 for research or assessment purposes had the opportunity to practice with the testing kit.

2017 workshop participants came from the following institutions University of Texas/San Antonio Bay State Health Boston College Columbia University Connecticut Children Medical Center Eastern Michigan University George Mason University Macquarie University New York University Northeastern University Northwestern University Ohio University Portland State University Rice University Sam Houston State University Seoul National University Simmons College St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital The University of Warwick University of Connecticut University of MassachusettsAmherst

University of MassachusettsLowell University of Massachusetts Medical School University Medical Center Groningen University of Arkansas at Little Rock University of California Berkeley University of Kentucky University of Maryland University of Michigan Medical School University of North Carolina / Chapel Hill University of Northern Colorado University of Notre Dame University of Rhode Island University of Rochester University of Southern California Washington State University Yale University

Dongwei Wang

Alice Coyne

Joel Ginn

Consulting Staff and Students

Dongwei Wang Staff Methodology Consultant Dongwei joined CRF in Spring 2018 as a Methodology Consultant and also serves as a Data Manager/Analyst for the Rudd Adoption Research Program. She graduated from the University at Buffalo where she had her training in quantitative research methodology, which includes ANOVA, regression, hierarchical linear modeling, and survival analyses. She also has knowledge of several statistical packages, such as SPSS, HLM, R, and SAS. She helps clients with research design and statistical analyses as well as results interpretation using her backgrounds in research methodology and experience conducting research using large-scale data.

Alice Coyne Graduate Student Methodology Consultant Alice joined CRF in Fall 2017 as a staff methodology consultant.

She has statistical training in ANOVA, regression, multilevel modeling, structural equation modeling, intensive longitudinal analyses, and multilevel structural equation modeling. She has a working knowledge of multiple statistical packages such as SPSS, HLM, LISREL, and MPlus. Alice helps clients develop their plans for data analysis, conduct analyses, and assist with the interpretation of results. She has recently attended workshops on analyzing intensive longitudinal data and multilevel structural equation modeling.

Joel Ginn Graduate Student Methodology Consultant Joel joined CRF in Spring 2018 as a methodology consultant.

He has been trained in ANOVA, regression, and HLM. Joel works primarily with SPSS and the PROCESS macro, though he has some training in HLM, MPlus, and R. Joel works with clients to conduct and interpret analyses and helps them develop plans for data analysis.

ANNUAL REPORT 2018

CRF Methodological Workshops and Trainings

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Student Family Research Awards Program The CRF Student Research Awards Program recognizes and supports outstanding students for their innovative research on issues related to families. This year eleven talented students were selected to receive more than $25,000 in funding. Awardees come from a broad range of disciplines and departments. Students and their mentors were recognized at a reception on May 2nd, and they will also be recognized at the 2018 annual CRF dinner. Since the Student Research Awards program began in 2010, 124 students have received over $377,000 to conduct research and present their research findings at professional meetings.

GRADUATE RESEARCH FELLOWSHIPS $10,000 for one year Alice Fiddian-Green, PhD candidate, Health Promotion and Policy Critical Turning Points and Opioid Use Trajectories Among Pregnant and Parenting Women Mentor: Aline Gubrium (Health Promotion and Policy) Hallie Brown, PhD candidate, Psychological and Brain Sciences Behavior Development in Toddlers Mentor: Elizabeth Harvey (Psychological and Brain Sciences)

ANNUAL REPORT 2018

GRADUATE RESEARCH AWARDS

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$500 for one year Aaron Foote, PhD candidate, Sociology The Origins of Crisis: Flint Water and the Lived Experience of a ManMade Disaster Mentor: Dan Clawson (Sociology) Nozipho Maziya, PhD candidate, Nutrition Barriers to HAART Adherence among HIV-infected Women in Rural Swaziland: A Mixed Methods Approach Mentor: Lindiwe Sibeko (Nutrition)

UNDERGRADUATE ASSISTANTSHIP $3,000 for one year Rachel Haley (class of 2019), Global Health Chronic Disease and Dominican Immigration: A Comparative Study Mentor: Professor Melody Slashinski (Health Promotion and Policy)

GRADUATE TRAVEL AWARDS Recipients receive up to $300 towards travel costs Alexandrea Craft, PhD candidate, Psychological and Brain Sciences Family Matters: The Lasting Consequences of Early Marital Relations on Children’s Development National Council on Family Relations, Orlando, FL Mentor: Maureen Perry-Jenkins (Psychological and Brain Sciences)

Adaeze Egwuatu, PhD candidate, Neuroscience and Behavior Motivated attention to social and non-social reward stimuli in children: Associations with temperament and problem behavior Occasional Temperament Conference, Murcia City, Spain Mentor: Jennifer McDermott (Psychological and Brain Sciences) Eunjung Jee, PhD candidate, Economics Motherhood Penalties in the U.S., 1986-2014 Population Association of America 2018 Annual Meeting, Denver, CO Mentor: Joya Misra (Sociology) Patrick Sadil, PhD candidate, Psychological and Brain Sciences Episodic-like retrieval mechanisms for non-episodic memories: Visual recollection in the absence of identification Context and Episodic Memory Symposium, Philadelphia, PA Mentor: Rosemary Cowell (Psychological and Brain Sciences)

New Pilot - Grant Writing Program

CRF is hosting a pilot program developed by Dr. Rebecca Spencer to facilitate and support graduate students in the development of successful graduate fellowship applications. This pilot program is a 9-month program designed specifically for NSF and NIH predoctoral fellowship proposals. Six selected graduate scholars will receive mentoring and support from CRF faculty, staff, and peers

throughout the grant development process, including: development, refinement, and communication of research ideas, approach, and methodology

GRADUATE STUDENT SCHOLARS

Melanna Cox, PhD candidate, Kinesiology Identifying and evaluating the effects of benevolent sexism on physical activity levels of adolescent girls Mentor: John R. Sirard (Kinesiology) Stephanie Delzell, PhD candidate, Microbiology Deciphering the roles of multiple mitochondrial DNA polymerases in Trypanosoma brucei Mentor: Michele Klingbeil (Microbiology) Shannon Gair, PhD candidate, Psychological and Brain Sciences Identifying behavioral and neural correlates of ADHD risk in toddlers Mentor: Elizabeth Harvey (Psychological and Brain Sciences) Kyle Kainec, PhD candidate, Neuroscience and Behavior Delineating the role of sleep in semantic memory consolidation Mentor: Rebecca Spencer (Psychological and Brain Sciences) Sanna Lokhandwala, PhD candidate, Psychological and Brain Sciences Sleep and emotion processing in early childhood Mentor: Rebecca Spencer (Psychological and Brain Sciences) Jonathan Woodson, PhD candidate, Neuroscience and Behavior Can chronic stress at critical periods impact vasopressin neuron activity that drives social behavior?

Mentor: Joseph Bergan (Psychological and Brain Sciences)

ANNUAL REPORT 2018

TRAINING THE NEXT GENERATION OF FAMILY RESEARCHERS

Monika Roy, PhD candidate, Environmental Health Sciences Environmental sampling of PCB-11 and embryotoxicity in zebrafish (Danio rerio) Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry North America, Minneapolis, MN Mentor: Alicia Timme-Laragy (Environmental Health Sciences)

Marina Donnelly, PhD candidate, Education Implementation of School-Based Parent Training for Students with Challenging Behavior National Association of School Psychologists 2018 Annual Convention, Chicago, IL Mentor: Sarah Fefer (Education) Recent CRF student awardees, from left, Alice Fiddian-Green, Rachel Haley, Stephanie Delzell, Hallie Brown, Shirley Plucinski and Chaia Flegenheimer.

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Student Research Highlights CRF 2017-2018 Student Award Recipients Share Their Research

Haotian Wu, winner of a $500 CRF dissertation award, is a doctoral student in the Environmental Health Sciences. Together with his advisor, Dr. J. Richard Pilsner, Haotian examines the influence of phthalates on reproduction. Findings from this work will contribute to the understanding of the susceptibility of early life development to environmental factors.

“At CRF, I gained more knowledge and experience with other disciplines and perspectives. There is value in perspectives of people who are not directly connected to your field and work. I was given an entirely fresh set of perspectives on why my grant was viewed the way it was.”

- Haotian Wu Shirley Plucinski, winner of a $3,000 Undergraduate Assistantship, is an honors student pursuing a degree in Psychology with a double minor in education and political science. She is working under the mentorship of Dr. Rebecca Spencer to study the influence of daytime napping on motor memory in preschool-aged children.

ANNUAL REPORT 2018

“CRF’s student research scholars program has opened up a world of opportunity for me. The resources, faculty, and support have allowed me to dedicate myself to my thesis and has encouraged me to pursue a research career or graduate school in the future.”

- Shirley Plucinski

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The CRF SRS Program mirrors CRF’s Family Research Scholars (FRS) program for faculty; award recipients meet regularly to discuss their research projects with peers, faculty, and staff and they receive funding, methodology assistance, and mentorship.

The following awardees participated in the ongoing program: Chaia Flegenheimer, Rachel Herman, Ragini Saira, Shirley Plucinski, Rodrigo Dominguez, Mahala Stewart, Haotian Wu, and Gennarina Santorelli.

This following section highlights the research and experiences of several SRS program participants and two of CRF’s six travel

award winners this year. Awardees repeatedly stressed the important role CRF played in furthering their research.

Sarah Lowe, winner of a $10,000 Pre-dissertation Fellowship, is a doctoral student in Community Health Education. Under the mentorship of Dr. Aline Gubrium, Sarah’s research focuses on psychosocial determinants of mental health and resilience amongst refugee and immigrant populations through narrative, digital, and visual research methods. Her current project is a mixed-methods, community-based digital storytelling initiative in conjunction with the Bhutanese Society of Western

Alexandrea Craft is a doctoral student in the Clinical Psychology Program in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences.

She is working under the guidance of Professor Maureen PerryJenkins to study how risk and resiliency factors shape early child development among low-income families. Her current research focuses on investigating how early parental conflict and conflict resolution styles, experienced during a child’s first year of life, are associated with children’s behavioral outcomes at age six. Her travel award allowed her to travel to The National Council of Family Relations Annual Conference in Orlando, Florida.

“The CRF travel award helped me connect with other scholars researching family dynamics. I am grateful to CRF for helping expand my research network and my knowledge on family research.”

- Alexandrea Craft Monika Roy is a California native who completed her undergraduate degree from the College of Natural Resources at UC Berkeley. She is currently pursuing a PhD at UMass Amherst’s School of Public Health and Health Sciences. She is a member of the Timme-Laragy lab in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences, where she researches emerging waterborne contaminants’ and their effects on embryonic development. She presented her findings at the North America region of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry last fall.

“The CRF travel award has supported me in presenting my first poster at a national conference. CRF has showed me that opportunities exist to support student growth in a research area that is not particularly well-funded.”

-Monika Roy

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“The aim of the Student Research Scholars (SRS) program is to support graduate and undergraduate students to perform cutting-edge research on families. Through the SRS program, our goal is to create the next generation of scholars who can think in profound interdisciplinary ways to solve the complex problems facing families.”

- Maureen Perry-Jenkins, CRF Director

ANNUAL REPORT 2018

Massachusetts titled, Home, Health, and Solidarity: Digital Storytelling for Refugee Resilience.

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fellowship has allowed me to focus more on my research goals.”

- Chaia Flegenheimer

“From a young age, women are exposed to subtle and unconscious negative stereotypes that lead them to believe they will not be as successful as men in STEM fields,” says Chaia, who hopes her work will help educators better understand stereotype threats and lessen gender disparities in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) fields.

Chaia Flegenheimer

ANNUAL REPORT 2018

Chaia Flegenheimer’s interest in the workings of the human brain began at a young age. Chaia, the recipient of the 201718 CRF Graduate Family Research Dissertation Fellowship, struggled during her early school years with learning challenges, particularly related to understanding the mechanics of spelling and math. The differences in her learning experiences compared to that of her peers sparked her interest in how the brain processes information.

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Chaia completed her Bachelor’s degree in Neuroscience at Vassar College in 2013. A Pioneer Valley native, her career goals brought her back to western Massachusetts to join the PhD program in Neuroscience at UMass Amherst. Under the mentorship of Dr. Jennifer McDermott, and with the guidance of Dr. Nilanjana Dasgupta, Chaia is currently studying the behavioral and neural effects of implicit stereotype threat on task performance and engagement in young women.

Chaia’s dissertation research has three primary aims.

First, she aims to confirm that she can induce stereotype threat in young women in a laboratory setting. Second, she aims to discern whether there are neural differences in individuals facing stereotype threat. Finally, she examines whether the neural differences can be lessened by introducing individuals to positive group role models.

Chaia’s research has many real-world implications. As Chaia notes, “Increasing the number of women in STEM fields will increase revenues for the growing number of families who rely on the mother’s income.” Chaia has applied for postdoctoral positions for the upcoming year prior to applying for academic positions.

“CRF’s dissertation fellowship has allowed me to focus more on my research goals,” says Chaia. Chaia also participated in CRF’s Student Research Scholars seminar, where she joined seven other students who meet regularly with CRF faculty and methodologists to share their work and get feedback and support for their research.

Durga Kolla, recipient of the 2017 CRF Family Research Honors Capstone Award, is a student in the Environmental Health Sciences 4+1 BS/MS program in the School of Public Health and Health Sciences. She studies the effects of environmental chemicals on mice throughout their lifespan.

Durga’s decision to major in public health and neuroscience was inspired by a class taught by Dr. Laura Vandenberg, a 2015-16 CRF Family Research Scholar, and led her to join Dr. Vandenberg’s lab. Durga’s research focuses on the effects of exposure to environmental chemicals with estrogenic activity in relation to the development of the mammary gland in mice.

“About 10 years ago there was a lot of public outcry to ban BPA (Bisphenol A) from everyday household items such as plastic baby bottles and toys. The industry removed BPA from many of these products, and labeled them as ‘BPA free,’ but they ended up replacing it with a lesser known, less well-studied hormonemimicking chemical known as BPS (Bisphenol S),” she explains.

Her thesis hopes to answer the question of whether or not BPS behaves similarly to BPA. She is hoping to determine whether developmental exposure to BPS will alter the response of mice to subsequent hormonal treatment at puberty and as adults. Durga explains that it will be crucial to answer this question as we think about the effects BPS has on humans.

Durga describes her research as being directly related to children and families. “All populations are exposed to environmental chemicals. BPS is found in water bottles, medical equipment, canned food linings, plastic food containers, and dental sealants, for example. We are trying to pinpoint when in the developmental process we are most vulnerable.”

As a thesis award recipient, Durga feels fortunate to be part of a community that offers students so much. “I have met so many inspiring people through CRF and I feel like they have so much to offer to support students.” Durga defended her thesis in the Spring of 2018.

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“I have met so many inspiring people through CRF and I feel like they have so much to offer to support students.”

- Durga Kolla

ANNUAL REPORT 2018

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“CRF’s dissertation

Durga Kolla

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COLLABORATIONS AND PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT

THE FOLLOWING SCHOLARS VISITED CRF IN 2017-2018:

Calvin Morrill, Ph.D.

Tay Gavin Erickson Lecture Series 2017-2018

ANNUAL REPORT 2018

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“The consultation was incredibly valuable. She gave us an array of helpful ideas that informed both the grant write-up and the design of the project itself, and it was great to connect with a fellow researcher with similar research goals.”

-Jeffrey Starns, 2017-18 Family Research Scholar

TAY GAVIN ERICKSON LECTURE SERIES 2017

THOUGHTS

BEHAVIOR

Steven Hollon, Ph.D.

EMOTIONS

IS COGNITIVE THERAPY ENDURING OR ARE ANTIDEPRESSANTS IATROGENIC?

Gertrude Conway Vanderbilt Professor of Psychology, Professor of Psychology and Human Development, Professor of Psychiatry, Department of Psychological Sciences, Vanderbilt University Lecture: Is Cognitive Therapy Enduring or are Antidepressants Iatrogenic?

Date: December 11, 2017 Consulted with CRF Scholar, Assistant Professor, Kalpana Poudel-Tandukar

David Grabowski, Ph.D.

Professor of Health Care Policy, Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School Lecture: Opportunities and Challenges: Using Market-based Approaches to Encourage High Quality Nursing Home Care Date: February 8, 2018 Consulted with CRF Scholar, Assistant Professor, Ning Zhang

Michelle McDowell, Ph.D.

Research Scientist, Harding Center for Risk Literacy, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany Lecture: Knowing Your Risks: The Effect of Information Representation on Risk Literacy Date: April 10, 2018 Consulted with CRF Scholar, Associate Professor, Jeffrey Starns

MONDAY, DECEMBER 11 12 PM

Room 160 West, Commonwealth Honors College, UMASS AMHERST

STEVEN HOLLON, PH.D. Gertrude Conway Vanderbilt Professsor of Psychology Professor of Psychology and Human Development; Professor of Psychiatry Department of Psychological Sciences, Vanderbilt University

Does the addition of antidepressant medications to cognitive therapy (CT) have an iatrogenic effect that interferes with CT’s known enduring effect on depression? Might the combination possibly prolong the length of the underlying episode? In his talk, Dr. Hollon will present his research findings, which raise concerns that cognitive therapy provided in combination with medication does little to prevent recurrence of depression.

ANNUAL REPORT 2018

The Tay Gavin Erickson lecture series allows CRF to simultaneously foster family research and engage with the public in public conversations and lectures.

The lecture series brings internationally recognized speakers with expertise in family research to campus each year. The lecture series began in 1999 through an endowment established in memory of Tay Gavin Erickson. During the 2017-2018 Tay Gavin Erickson lecture series, CRF hosted four prominent researchers who gave public lectures and provided in-depth consultation to CRF scholars.

CENTER FOR RESEARCH ON FAMILIES

Stefan A. Riesenfeld, Professor of Law, Professor of Sociology and Associate Dean for Jurisprudence and Social Policy and Legal Studies in the School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley Lecture: Navigating Conflict: How Youth Handle Trouble in a High-Poverty School Date: December 8, 2017 Consulted with CRF Scholar, Assistant Professor, Jamie Rowen

www.umass.edu/family The Tay Gavin Erickson Lecture series brings internationally recognized speakers with expertise in family research to campus each year. The lecture series began in 1999 through an endowment established in memory of Tay Gavin Erickson.

2017-18 Family Research Scholar Jeffrey Starns and consultant Michelle McDowell of the Max Planck Institute, Berlin.

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Interdisciplinary Collaborations CRF is committed to creating opportunities for research collaboration and the formation of intellectual communities that bring students and researchers together across traditional boundaries. CRF collaborates with other centers, departments, schools, and colleges within UMass Amherst to develop multidisciplinary projects. Faculty from the Five Colleges and other UMass campuses also engage in joint ventures with CRF, which has led to innovative projects and an extended network of research opportunities. Some of this past year’s activities include:

Rudd Adoption Research Program

Supporting faculty “think tanks”: Bringing together interdisciplinary teams of faculty with shared interests in issues and topics of importance to families such as stress, work and family, early child development, and adolescence.

CRF Co-sponsored the following public events and lectures on key family Issues:

Jen Dolan, Rudd Adoption Research Program Manager, and Harold Grotevant, Rudd Family Foundation Endowed Chair at “The Future of Adoption: Moving Beyond Safety to Well-Being,” the 2018 Rudd New Worlds of Adoption Conference.

ANNUAL REPORT 2018

On April 13, 2018, the Rudd Adoption Research Program hosted the 2018 Rudd Adoption Research New Worlds of Adoption Conference, The Future of Adoption: Beyond Safety to Well-Being, which included 258 conference attendees from across the world.

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This year marked the Rudd Adoption Research Program’s 10th anniversary and featured Dr. Gary Mallon as keynote speaker. Dr. Mallon is the Julia Lathrop Professor of Child Welfare and Executive Director of the National Center for Child Welfare Excellence at the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College in New York City. The conference theme expanded on the three goals of the child welfare system: safety, permanency, and well-being. Panel discussions and breakout sessions addressed broader issues that adult adoptees identified as being of concern to them, including knowledge of their own genetic background and connections to their birth relatives and culture.

- Domestic Violence and Experience of Muslim Women, presented by Dr. Parveen Ali, in partnership with the College of Nursing

- The Bright Future of Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy, presented by Theodore Huppert, PhD, in partnership with the Developmental Science Initiative and the College of Natural Sciences - On Edge: Towards an Affective Geopolitics of Bordering, presented by Madeleine Reeves, in partnership with the Department of Anthropology - CRF/ISSR Scholar Program Information Session for prospective applicants to the Scholars Program at CRF and ISSR

- DACA Teach-In, in partnership with the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences - Socioeconomic Inequality and Children’s Brain Development, presented by Kimberly Noble, MD, PhD, joint colloquium with CRF and ISSR - Why do Humans Have Difficult Childbirth and Helpless Newborns?, presented by Karen Rosenberg, PhD, in partnership with the Department of Anthropology - How Scholars and Activists Can Partner for Reproductive and Racial Justice: A Conversation with Loretta Ross and Rickie Solinger, in partnership with ISSR and the Public Engagement Project Harold Grotevant and Steven Goodwin, UMass Deputy Chancellor and Chief Planning Officer with Virginia and Andrew Rudd.

- Racial and Socioeconomic Disparities in Health: Present realities and future directions, presented by David Williams, PhD, MPH, in partnership with the Center for Community Health Equity Research

Public Engagement Program (PEP) The Public Engagement Project supports and trains faculty members from all disciplines to use their research to contribute to social change, inform public policy, and enrich public debate.

CRF, in collaboration with ISSR, School for Public Policy, and the Psychology of Peace and Violence Program, spearheaded this program, which has resulted in national exposure for faculty in public media outlets such as PBS, the New York Times, the Boston Globe, and the Huffington Post, to name a few.

CRF Co-sponsored the PEP event: Making Research Matter: Sharing Insights on Public Engagement.

ANNUAL REPORT 2018

The Rudd Adoption Research Program and the Center for Research on Families are closely linked through their overlapping missions and strategies. CRF provides administrative support to the Rudd program, and their close proximity and shared research strengths benefit both programs. The Rudd Adoption Research Program is a leader in producing and disseminating state-of-theart research on the Psychology of Adoption through conferences, workshops, graduate and postdoctoral training opportunities, and stimulation of research activities. Dr. Harold Grotevant is the Rudd Family Foundation Endowed Chair in the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences and leads the Rudd Adoption Research Program.

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CRF FACULTY, STAFF AND STUDENTS

CRF’s interdisciplinary Stress Research Group consists of 28 researchers who have been meeting since 2008 to better understand the causes of stress, the effects of stress, and methods of stress measurement because of the critical role stress plays in individuals and families. The Stress Research Group has been working across disciplines to integrate techniques, tools, and perspectives to examine how and why stress manifests in the body throughout life, how the manifestation of stress influences relationships and mental health, and how we can address the negative effects of stress to improve health. The Stress Research Group applies a lifespan approach to study and measure stress from gestation and infancy, through adolescence and young adulthood, and to menopause and beyond.

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The group meets bi-weekly to discuss their stress and familyrelated research. The meetings stimulate cross-disciplinary analysis and assist each member with his or her research.

Family relationships, animal bonding, developmental phases, and neuroscience are important aspects of this cluster’s research. Members of the Stress Research Group have coauthored articles, submitted grant proposals together, and supported each other in productivity and creativity of thought.

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The Stress Research Group resubmitted a Training Grant application to the National Science Foundation in 2017.

The Stress Research Group seeks to offer a new certificate program that will train students to develop novel and interdisciplinary theses and dissertations that advance the study of, and response to, stress. The program will offer unique biopsychosocial training to provide young investigators with the foundation to thrive in academia, industry, and applied science careers and will continue beyond the funding period.

FACULTY IN THE STRESS RESEARCH GROUP

Heather Richardson, Co-director of Stress Research Group, Associate Professor, Psychological and Brain Sciences Lynnette Leidy Sievert, Co-director of Stress Research Group, Professor, Anthropology

Kirby Deater-Deckard, Co-director of Stress Research Group, Professor, Psychological and Brain Sciences Annaliese Beery, Assistant Professor, Psychology, Smith College Joseph Bergan, Assistant Professor, Psychological and Brain Sciences Jeffrey Blaustein, Professor Emeritus, Psychological and Brain Sciences Elizabeth Bertone-Johnson, Associate Professor, Epidemiology Matt Davidson, Lecturer, Psychological and Brain Sciences Katherine Dixon-Gordon, Assistant Professor, Psychological and Brain Sciences Andrew Farrar, Research Fellow, Psychological and Brain Sciences Louis Graham, Assistant Professor, School of Public Health and Health Sciences Susan Hankinson, Professor and Chair, Biostatistics and Epidemiology Mary Harrington, Tippet Professor in Life Sciences, Psychology, Smith College KC Haydon, Assistant Professor, Psychology and Education, Mount Holyoke College Karen Kalmakis, Associate Professor, Nursing Agnès Lacreuse, Associate Professor, Psychological and Brain Sciences Jerrold Meyer, Professor Emeritus, Psychological and Brain Sciences Jennifer Martin McDermott, Assistant Professor, Psychological and Brain Sciences David Moorman, Assistant Professor, Psychological and Brain Sciences Melinda Novak, Professor, Psychological and Brain Sciences Mariana Pereira, Assistant Professor, Psychological and Brain Sciences Maureen Perry-Jenkins, Professor, Psychological and Brain Sciences, CRF Director Paula Pietromonaco, Professor Emeritus, Psychological and Brain Sciences Sally Powers, Professor Emeritus, Psychological and Brain Sciences; Associate Dean, College of Natural Sciences Rebecca Ready, Professor, Psychological and Brain Sciences Luke Remage-Healey, Assistant Professor, Psychological and Brain Sciences Lisa Troy, Assistant Professor, Nutrition and Commonwealth Honors College Professor Brian Whitcomb, Associate Professor, Public Health

Steering Committee

BRIGITTE HOLT, Anthropology EZEKIEL KIMBALL, Education GERALD DOWNES, Biology HAROLD GROTEVANT, Psychological and Brain Sciences ELIZABETH HARVEY, Psychological and Brain Sciences HOLLY LAWS, Psychological and Brain Sciences JOYA MISRA, Sociology KAREN KALMAKIS, Nursing LINDIWE SIBEKO, Nutrition SARA WHITCOMB, Education SOFIYA ALHASSAN, Kinesiology STEVE GOODWIN, Deputy Chancellor and Chief Planning Officer

Faculty & Staff

MAUREEN PERRY-JENKINS, Director ALINE SAYER, Co-Director of CRF Methodology Program HOLLY LAWS, Co-Director of CRF Methodology Program GISELE LITALIEN, Associate Director ANGELA RUSSO, Assistant Director of Communications and Events STEPHANIE COVELLI, Financial Manager LISA FIORENZO, Methodology Consultant DONGWEI WANG, Methodology Consultant

Students

ALICE COYNE, Graduate Assistant, Methodology JOEL GINN, Graduate Assistant, Methodology RACHEL HERMAN, Graduate Assistant on the Work and Family Transitions Project, Psychological and Brain Sciences, College of Natural Sciences ALEXANDRA CRAFT, Graduate Assistant on the Work and Family Transitions Project, Psychological and Brain Sciences, College of Natural Sciences OLIVIA HAMMOND, Undergraduate Program Assistant, Isenberg School of Management AMBYR BRAXTON, Undergraduate Program Assistant, College of Natural Sciences and College of Social and Behavioral Sciences PALISTA KHAREL, Graduate Program Assistant, Isenberg School of Management and College of Social and Behavioral Science, School of Public Policy FAITH ENGLISH, Graduate Program Assistant, School of Public Health and Health Sciences

Faculty Affiliates

LUIZ AMARAL, Spanish and Portuguese Studies DANIEL ANDERSON, Psychological and Brain Sciences KATHLEEN ARCARO, Veterinary and Animal Science

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Stress Research Group

Faculty, staff and students from CRF and the Rudd Adoption Research Program. Front, L to R: Hal Grotevant, Maureen Perry-Jenkins, Palista Kharel, Faith English; Back, L to R: Olivia Hammond, Gisele Litalien, Angela Russo, Holly Laws.

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LAURA LOVETT, History JENNIFER LUNDQUIST, Sociology and Associate Dean in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences JENNIFER MARTIN MCDERMOTT, Psychological and Brain Sciences JERROLD MEYER, Professor Emeritus, Psychological and Brain Sciences JOYA MISRA, Sociology and Public Policy DAVID MOORMAN, Psychological and Brain Sciences JACQUELINE MOSSELSON, Educational Policy Research and Administration SUSAN NEWTON, Public Policy MELINDA NOVAK, Psychological and Brain Sciences TATISHE NTETA, Political Science MAGDA OIRY, Linguistics JOONKOO PARK, Psychological and Brain Sciences FAREEN PARVEZ, Sociology MARIANA PEREIRA, Psychological and Brain Sciences MAUREEN PERRY-JENKINS, Psychological and Brain Sciences PAULA PIETROMONACO, Professor Emeritus, Psychological and Brain Sciences J. RICHARD PILSNER, Environmental Health Sciences SALLY POWERS, Professor Emeritus, Psychological and Brain Sciences MARSHA KLINE PRUETT, Smith College, Social Work REBECCA READY, Psychological and Brain Sciences KATHERINE REEVES, Epidemiology LUKE REMAGE-HEALEY, Psychological and Brain Sciences HEATHER RICHARDSON, Psychological and Brain Sciences DEAN ROBINSON, Political Science GWYNETH ROST, Communication Disorders WENONA RYMOND-RICHMOND, Sociology LISA SANDERS, Psychological and Brain Sciences AMY SCHALET, Sociology ERICA SCHARRER, Communication LYNNETTE LEIDY SIEVERT, Anthropology REBECCA SPENCER, Psychological and Brain Sciences RICHARD TESSLER, Sociology LINDA TROPP, Psychological and Brain Sciences LISA TROY, Nutrition LAURA VANDENBERG, Environnemental Heath Science RYAN WELLS, Educational Policy, Research & Administration LISA WEXLER, Community Health Education BRIAN WHITCOMB, Epidemiology SEON YEONG YU, Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies

Transitions and Fond Farewells Over the past year CRF has had to say goodbye to some amazing faculty and staff who have made significant contributions to our Center.

Aline Sayer has been the Methodology Director of CRF since 2004. She has developed national recognition for CRF as a place for cutting-edge, methodological expertise in family research. Her longstanding service to CRF will be sorely missed and we wish her a wonderful retirement.

Angela Russo, Assistant Director of Communications and Events, devoted tremendous time, energy, and creativity to our CRF communications and networking; she created the “face” of CRF. In addition, she managed our team of graduate and undergraduates as she spearheaded CRF events and research celebrations. Angela is moving on to an exciting new position and she too will be greatly missed.

We thank her for the amazing skills, organization, and service she brought to CRF and we wish her the best of luck in her new position.

Lisa Fiorenzo, Methodology Consultant, worked with CRF for three years, providing statistical guidance and consultation to countless students and faculty across campus. She was offered a wonderful new job, building on her methodological and statistical expertise, in the Boston area. We wish her the best of luck!

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MEGHAN ARMSTRONG-ABRAMI, Spanish and Portuguese Studies DAVID ARNOLD, Psychological and Brain Sciences YSAACA AXELROD, Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies M. V. LEE BADGETT, Economics and Public Policy ANNALIESE BEERY, Psychology, Smith College JOSEPH BERGAN, Neuroendocrine Studies ANGÉLICA M. BERNAL, Political Science ELIZABETH BERTONE-JOHNSON, Epidemiology JEFFREY BLAUSTEIN, Professor Emeritus, Psychological and Brain Sciences SYLVIA BRANDT, Resource Economics and School of Public Policy MICHELLE BUDIG, Sociology BRENDA BUSHOUSE, Political Science and Public Policy ERIK CHERIES, Psychological and Brain Studies YU-KYONG CHOE, Communication Disorders DANIEL CLAWSON, Sociology LEDA COOKS, Communication LORRAINE CORDEIRO, Nutrition NILANJANA DASGUPTA, Psychological and Brain Sciences MATT DAVIDSON, Psychological and Brain Sciences KIRBY DEATER-DECKARD, Psychological and Brain Sciences KRISTINA DELIGIANNIDIS, UMass Memorial Hospital KATHERINE DIXON-GORDON, Psychological and Brain Sciences GERALD DOWNES, Biology ANDREW FARRAR, Psychological and Brain Sciences NANCY FOLBRE, Professor Emeritus, Economics NAOMI GERSTEL, Sociology ABBIE GOLDBERG, Psychology, Clark University LOUIS GRAHAM, Community Health Education LISA GREEN, Linguistics SANJIV GUPTA, Sociology CLAIRE HAMILTON, Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies SUE HANKINSON, Biostatistics & Epidemiology KRISTA HARPER, Anthropology MARY HARRINGTON, Psychology, Smith College KATHERINE K. (KC) HAYDON, Psychology and Education, Mount Holyoke College JULIE HEMMENT, Anthropology LINDA ISBELL, Psychological and Brain Sciences ALEXANDRA JESSE, Psychological and Brain Sciences MILIANN KANG, Women’s Studies DAVID KITTREDGE, Natural Resources and Environment ELIZABETH L. KRAUSE, Anthropology JACQUIE KURLAND, Communication Disorders AGNES LACREUSE, Psychological and Brain Sciences

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Center for Research on Families 135 Hicks Way, 622 Tobin Hall University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003 Phone: (413) 545-4631 www.umass.edu/family

Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research & Engagement