Damilola Adekunle

Damilola Adekunle is a PhD student in Public Health at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. Her research focuses on childhood adversity and strategies to mitigate its deleterious effects on human health. She is passionate about translating research into practice, informing policy, and developing evidence-based programs that support vulnerable children and families.

Gabriel Alvarez

Gabriel Alvarez is a third year concurrent doctoral student in Criminology, Law and Society and a J.D. candidate at the University of California, Irvine. His research explores how legal systems shape family life across the life course, with particular attention to the experiences of vulnerable populations, including children, adolescents, and neurodiverse individuals. Integrating insights from life-course criminology, social and developmental psychology, and family demography, his work spans topics such as child forensic interviewing, domestic violence, and the developmental consequences of justice system involvement. Gabriel earned an M.A. in Social Ecology (Concentration in Psychology and Law), an M.A. in Social Science (Concentration in Demographic and Social Analysis) from the University of California Irvine, an M.S. in Criminology and Criminal Justice, a Master of Public Administration, and a Graduate Certificate in Domestic Violence and Evidence-Practice from Arizona State University, a B.A. in Psychology and a B.A. in Criminal Justice from the University of Texas at San Antonio.

Keisha April

Keisha April is an Assistant Professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University-Newark. She is a lawyer and clinical psychologist whose research examines factors that contribute to racial and ethnic disparities in the juvenile justice system. Using mixed methods approaches, she examines the experiences, attitudes, and beliefs of the individuals who interact with and work within the justice system, to inform policies and practices aimed at reducing disparities and to promote more positive outcomes for justice-involved and at-risk youth. She earned her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Drexel University and her J.D. from Cardozo Law School.

Ayana K. April-Sanders

Ayana K. April-Sanders, PhD, MPH, is a chronic disease epidemiologist specializing in cardiovascular and metabolic health. Her research focuses on the role of social determinants of health, health disparities, and psychosocial stress in shaping disease risk, particularly in vulnerable and minoritized communities. Dr. April-Sanders takes a multidisciplinary approach to uncover mechanisms that explain, predict, and inform interventions for cardiometabolic disease, with the goal of promoting lifelong health equity. She earned her PhD in Epidemiology and MPH in Sociomedical Sciences from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and holds a Bachelor of Science in Public Health from Rutgers University.

Loren Beard

Loren Beard is a PhD Candidate at the University of Chicago who studies how social institutions shape family life. She leverages quantitative and qualitative methods to examine how policy contexts contribute to families’ involvement in carceral and welfare systems. Her research has also been published in outlets like Social Science & Medicine, Sociological Forum, and Children & Youth Services Review and has received external funding from the American Sociological Association, Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy, and AHRQ T32 Health Services Fellowship.

Logan Beyer

Logan Beyer is an MD/PhD student and aspiring pediatrician at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, where she is currently pursuing doctoral work in the social and behavioral sciences. A North Carolina native, she attended Duke University as a Benjamin N. Duke Scholar and pursued a self-designed course of study on the systems that impact child development. She was named a Truman Scholar in 2016 for both her scholarship and her commitment to public service. In 2017, Logan interned with the American Youth Policy Forum in Washington, DC. She then enlisted as an AmeriCorps National Service Member. During her two years of service, she built affordable housing for thirty-eight families.

Since matriculating at Harvard in 2019, Logan’s research and advocacy have centered around childhood adversity and health equity. Through the American Academy of Pediatrics, she has helped lead state and national advocacy campaigns on antiracism in healthcare, youth mental health, childhood food insecurity, and adverse childhood experiences. Her doctoral work is focused on investigating how, when, and where neighborhoods matter for child health – specifically, looking at variables like wealth, educational access, housing and food availability, social connectedness, and belonging. She plans to combine data from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study with causal epidemiology methods to estimate how community investments can improve child wellbeing.

Pratiksha Bhagat

Pratiksha Bhagat is a fourth-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Health Policy and Administration at The Pennsylvania State University, pursuing the Health Economics track. Her research centers on maternal and child health, with a particular interest in the long-term impacts of maternal and postpartum depression on the children. She aims to advance understanding of how maternal mental health influences the physical and mental health outcomes for both mothers and their children currently and in adulthood. Pratiksha received an M.S. in Economics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Ariana Burga

Ariana Burga is a Ph.D. student in Psychology at the University of Florida, specializing in Developmental Psychology and Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience. Her research examines how early-life adversity and environmental stressors become biologically embedded, particularly among racially and ethnically minoritized youth. She integrates biomarkers, such as DNA methylation and allostatic load, with social and contextual factors to explore long-term health disparities.

Laura Cachón-Alonso

Laura Cachón-Alonso is a doctoral researcher in the Department of Psychology at the University of Helsinki. Her doctoral project explores associations between social connection, cognitive function, and socioeconomic status across the lifespan using survey and birth-cohort data. In her upcoming research, Laura will leverage data from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study to investigate whether childhood loneliness places children at differential risk for poorer education.

Haydeeliz Carrasco

Haydeeliz Carrasco is a second-year Ph.D. student in Economics at The Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY). Her research explores poverty, inequality, intergenerational mobility, and how public policies shape socioeconomic outcomes. She is currently working on a joint research project, with Professors Miles Corak and Luis Monroy-Gómez-Franco, which uses the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study to analyze educational mobility in the United States. Before her Ph.D., Haydeeliz worked as a research consultant with the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the Dominican Republic’s Social Policy Cabinet. She holds a Bachelor’s in Economics from Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra in the Dominican Republic and a Master’s in Public Administration in International Development (MPA/ID) from the Harvard Kennedy School. 

YJ Chae

YJ Chae's research interests lie at the intersection of family demography, social movements, and computational social sciences. His research investigates how life experiences in childhood and adolescence, such as parents' divorce/separation, co-residence with social fathers, and (non)resident father involvement, shape children's later health, union formation, and political attitudes.

Leveraging recent technologies of large language models (LLMs), he incorporates computational methods into family research, such as word embedding and fine-tuning of LLMs. Specifically, he studies how men’s rights activists co-opt contemporary fathers and their perceived grievances by collecting data from various social media platforms, extending his research interests over the politics of parenthood. He also aims to contribute to life outcome prediction using LLMs.

Eileen Chanti

Eileen Chanti is a doctoral student in Human Development and Family Science at Oregon State University. Broadly, her research focuses on inequality, social policy, children and family wellbeing, and education. Eileen is passionate about the importance of putting research to action and aims to promote policies that support and strengthen families from a generational perspective. She holds a master’s degree in teaching with a focus on urban education and teacher leadership from the University of Chicago and leverages a decade’s worth of work in social services and education to inform her research.

Mengyun Chen

Mengyun Chen is a second-year doctoral student in Human Development and Family Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Mengyun is interested in exploring and understanding what factors would impact youth positive development. In addition, she would like to know how it influences current or future mental health and psychological well-being. She is also interested in how the family could function as a whole system to connect and support different family members. Mengyun is passionate about connecting research and clinical practice to build socioemotional development and mental health-focused prevention and intervention.

Cheng Chow

Cheng Chow is a Ph.D. student at the Steve Hicks School of Social Work and a trainee at the Population Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin. His research examines immigrant and minority health disparities, with a particular focus on how structural factors, social policies, and institutional exclusion shape the well-being of children and families in immigrant communities. Drawing from his own experiences as a left-behind child and later as an immigrant, Cheng’s work is grounded in a commitment to social justice and policy-relevant scholarship. Prior to graduate school, he served as a regional migration health officer at the International Organization for Migration (UN Migration Agency), where he led multi sectoral partnerships with WHO, UNICEF, and UNHCR to promote migrant health.

Yoonzie Chung

Yoonzie Chung is a PhD student at University of Maryland School of Social Work. She received her bachelor's degree in economics from Ewha Womans University in South Korea and her master's degree in social work from the Ohio State University. Her research focuses on identifying ways to alleviate economic hardship and improve child and family well-being, with particular interest in families experiencing poverty, disadvantaged neighborhoods, and the prevention of child maltreatment. She hopes to find ways to prevent child maltreatment and enhance financial wellbeing, help families access community-centered resources and social capital, and explore the effects of social policies (TANF, SNAP, and EITC) on child wellbeing.

Christopher Shawn Clark

Christopher Shawn Clark, M.S., is a third-year PhD student in the Population Health Science program at the University of Mississippi Medical Center’s John D. Bower School of Population Health. He holds a Master of Science in Developmental Psychology with a concentration in Child and Adolescent Development, and a Bachelor of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies with a concentration in Psychology. His academic and professional experience spans developmental psychology, injury prevention, and child and adolescent health. He has served in roles ranging from school mental health therapy to lead evaluator on federally funded initiatives targeting early childhood development, neurodevelopmental disabilities, and maternal and cardiovascular health. Christopher’s research focuses on understanding how early adversity and social determinants shape biopsychosocial outcomes in youth, particularly within underserved communities. He is committed to advancing evidence-based, community-centered interventions that promote health equity and resilience among vulnerable populations.

Emma DiLissio

Emma DiLissio is a second-year Ph.D. student in the department of Human Development and Family Studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Previously, she received her M.Sc. in Applied Developmental Psychology from Queen's University Belfast. Emma's research focuses on identifying risk and protective factors in children raised in emotionally dysregulated family climates, as well as the developmental trajectory of emotion regulation across the lifespan and its association with the intergenerational transmission of parenting practices. In her free time, Emma enjoys solo traveling, yoga, and playing with her dog!

Lili Dodderidge

Lili Dodderidge is a doctoral candidate in the Sociology department at Cornell University, with research interests in community and urban sociology, criminal justice, and the sociology of education. Prior to Cornell, Lili worked for several years at a research and policy center at Drexel University's School of Public Health on issues related broadly to U.S. social policy and welfare programming. Most recently, Lili served as a high school educator and administrator in Philadelphia for five years. She earned her MSEd in Education Policy from the University of Pennsylvania and her BA from Georgetown University.

Taylor Drazan

Taylor Drazan is a clinical psychology doctoral student at Indiana University Bloomington. Her work focuses on reproductive health transitions (puberty, pregnancy, and menopause) to assess physical and mental health across the lifespan.

Janae Dunkley

Janae Dunkley is a doctoral student in Epidemiology at Emory University, where she is focused on investigating the structural and biological pathways that contribute to racial disparities in maternal morbidity and mortality. She holds an MPH in Behavioral Sciences and Health Education and a BA in Human Health from Emory University. Prior to beginning her doctoral studies, she spent three years working in public health surveillance, with a particular emphasis on substance use during pregnancy. Her professional experience spans maternal and child health, social determinants of health, lifecourse research, and health equity research. Her current research interests include the role of accelerated epigenetic aging in hypertensive disorders of pregnancy among Black women, as well as examining how structural factors, such as neighborhood disadvantage and racial discrimination, shape maternal stress, mental health, and access to healthcare. She is passionate about producing research that informs policy and practice, and ultimately improves health outcomes for marginalized communities.

Shannon Feliciano

Shannon Feliciano is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Chair of the Department of Anthropology, Sociology, and Criminal Justice at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. She is currently examining how maternal incarceration shapes adolescents’ trust in the legal system, using data from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS). Her work explores how young people’s views of fairness, policing, and legal authority are influenced by both family experiences and community context. She is also actively using FFCWS data to study multigenerational households and the role of social capital in maternal and infant health disparities. Feliciano earned her Ph.D. in Sociology from Temple University.

Judith Fenlon

Judith Fenlon is a doctoral student in Social Welfare at the University at Albany: State University of New York. Judith utilizes her extensive experience as a community based social worker to inform her research interests.  She spent many years working with youth and families in educational and support contexts. Her scholarly interests include youth development, child welfare, juvenile justice, peer support among vulnerable populations including veterans, and participatory arts-based research. Judith is currently working on an article examining the relationship between collective efficacy and well-being among emerging adults, using FFCWS data. She is also examining the lived experience of low-income young people who are disconnected from education and employment.  

Judith is an outdoor enthusiast and loves to take her dogs and teenage children hiking in the mountains. She also has wanderlust and enjoys traveling to new places. 

Research Interests

Youth development, child welfare, and juvenile justice involved youth, youth workforce development, peer support, and mental health interventions for Veterans, and qualitative and community-based participatory (CBPR) research methods.

Courtlyn Fields 

Courtlyn Fields is a second-year doctoral student in Experimental Psychology at the University of Kentucky. She holds Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology from the University of Denver and Bachelor of Arts in Applied Psychology from Carson-Newman University. Prior to beginning her doctoral studies, she served as a Clinical Research Coordinator for the Injury and Violence Prevention Program at Virginia Commonwealth University, where she contributed to projects focused on youth and adult violence prevention. Her research interests center on the role of family conflict in the development of emotion dysregulation and disruptive behavior disorders in children. She is particularly interested in the long-term consequences of childhood exposure to interparental conflict that promote attachment and emotional insecurity. To support these interests, she has received extensive statistical training which include structural equation modeling and multilevel modeling. She is excited to attend the FFCWS Data Workshop to deepen her understanding of the dataset and apply it in her future research.

Matt Gannon

Matt Gannon is a Predoctoral Research Fellow at the Poverty and Inequality Research Lab at Johns Hopkins University. As a Marshall Scholar, he studied homelessness and eviction, graduating with distinction from the MSc in Evidence-Based Social Intervention and Policy Evaluation at the University of Oxford and the MA in Sociology at the University of Manchester. He graduated with the rank of salutatorian from Dartmouth College, where he researched interventions to reduce the stigmatization of unhoused people. While in the UK, he served as an editor of the Graduate Inequality Review and conducted research about housing insecurity and incarceration at the Centre for Homelessness Impact. Named a John Robert Lewis Scholar, his advocacy focuses on ending the criminalization of homelessness. 

Cheyenne Garcia

Cheyenne Garcia, B.A., is a Developmental Psychology PhD student at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She is currently researching multi-generational households and the relationship between emotional closeness to grandparents in childhood and emotional regulation in emerging adulthood. Prior to starting her PhD, she was a senior research data analyst at UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative where she researched homelessness among older adults. Cheyenne was a Fulbright Scholar in the Netherlands studying parenting at Leiden University. She graduated from Stanford University with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology with Honors and from American River College with four associate degrees.

Victoria Hunter Gibney

Victoria Hunter Gibney recently graduated with her PhD in Public Policy from American University and works as a Senior Research Analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities on the Income and Poverty Trends team. Victoria’s research interests sit at the intersection of antipoverty policy, children and families, and economic wellbeing, with a special interest in material hardship. Prior to joining CBPP, Victoria analyzed the impact of various programs and policies on families with very young children at the Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center at Vanderbilt University and the Bipartisan Policy Center. Victoria holds bachelor’s degrees in Political Science and Family, Youth, and Community Sciences and a Master of Public Health, all from the University of Florida. She lives with her husband in Washington, DC and enjoys traveling and learning to grow vegetables in their backyard garden.

Angela J. Hall

Angela J. Hall is a passionate social work scholar and practitioner whose work bridges research, education, and real-world experience to support youth from underserved communities. She holds both a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Social Work from Nazareth University, as well as a second Master’s degree in Higher Education Administration from the University of Rochester. Currently pursuing her Doctorate in Social Work at the University of Texas at Arlington, Angela brings a multifaceted professional background, having served as a medical social worker, care manager, and traveling hospice social worker.

Her research focuses on the development of emotion regulation in adolescents from low-resourced communities, with particular attention to the influence of parental discipline practices and other social-ecological factors. Angela is especially interested in applying quantitative methods to explore these dynamics, driven by a commitment to uncovering data-informed strategies that foster resilience, emotional well-being, and equitable outcomes for youth.

Jing-Mao Ho

Jing-Mao Ho is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Data Science at Utica University. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology from Cornell University. His research interests are broadly in the intersections of culture, social networks, biosociology, and computational social science. His recent projects examine topics such as mental health disparities, the role of epigenetics in health outcomes, and the cultural dimensions of global health.

Elizabeth Jelsma

Elizabeth Jelsma is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychological, Health, & Learning Sciences at the University of Houston College of Education. She earned a Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Sciences from the University of Texas at Austin. Her research interests include adolescent and adult health within the context of race, ethnicity, and family. Currently she is investigating how family members are affected by each other’s experiences of racial/ethnic discrimination and stress spillover within racial/ethnic minority families.

Pinar Karan

Pinar Karan (she/hers) is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology at the University of Maryland, College Park. She received her B.A. in Psychology and M.A. in Developmental Psychology from Boğaziçi University in Turkey.

Her research interests focus on father–child relationships and the role of fathering in children’s socioemotional development from an ecological perspective. Specifically, she investigates how cultural norms can act as buffering mechanisms against adverse outcomes in preschoolers’ socioemotional and cognitive development.

Taehyun (Ethan) Kim

Taehyun (Ethan) Kim is a Ph.D. student in Sociology at The Ohio State University, broadly interested in how families respond to shifting economic and policy landscapes. His research lies at the intersection of family demography, population dynamics, and social inequality—with a particular curiosity about how labor market institutions and social policies shape family behavior, fertility decisions, and intergenerational outcomes. Currently, he focuses on how changes in labor market policies and family subsidies influence parental time use, gendered labor divisions, and children's human capital development. Mostly drawing on longitudinal data, Taehyun applies causal inference methods to examine the demographic consequences of policy interventions and the structural forces that (re)produce inequality across families and generations.

Taehyun holds an M.S. in Economics from the Barcelona School of Economics (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) and dual bachelor’s degrees in Economics from Erasmus University Rotterdam and Sungkyunkwan University in South Korea.

Lauren Klein 

Lauren Klein is a second year PhD candidate in the Department of Population, Family, and Reproductive Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Before starting her PhD, she received her BS in biological sciences and her MPH. After conducting research in molecular cell biology, clinical psychology, and education policy, she began to pursue (and continues to pursue) work that bridged the disciplinary gaps she saw and improved outcomes for children and families. Her research focuses on two main objectives: 1) Understanding the science behind how early experiences and contexts (both positive and adverse) shape development across the life course; and 2) Leveraging our understanding of this science to inform cross-sectoral interventions, especially those at the intersection of health and education. She is looking forward to learning more about the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study, which is especially relevant to advancing research about how early experiences and contexts shape health and developmental trajectories.

Francesca M. Korte

Francesca M. Korte is a doctoral candidate in Population Health at Northeastern University. Her research explores how interconnected systems of marginalization and power shape the social positions and lived experiences of immigrant and minority populations, and the mechanisms through which these dynamics impact health and well-being. Drawing in part on data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS), her mixed-methods dissertation examines how the U.S. sociopolitical context interacts with Latine norms and scripts to increase vulnerability to both bias and non-bias motivated victimization and to create barriers to help-seeking, with consequences for mental health and quality of life. While focused on mixed-status Latine populations, this work informs broader social epidemiological approaches to understanding how bias-motivated victimization both reflects and reinforces the multilevel contexts and social positions individuals and groups navigate.

Maya Lakshman

Maya Lakshman is a third-year doctoral student in the Department of Mental Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Research Scholar. She holds an MPH from Emory University and has spent the past seven years studying how violence exposure and systems involvement shapes youth development and mental health. With FFCWS data, Maya examines intersectional identities, policing experiences, and the role of collective efficacy in emerging adult mental health. She is also interested in how social determinants—such as neighborhood context, intergenerational mobility, and demographic factors—shape development, systems involvement, and mental health outcomes through the life course. Maya has experience using spatial statistics, causal inference, and structural equation modeling. She looks forward to honing her analytic strategies and strengthening collaborations at the 2025 FFCWS Summer Workshop.

Khiara Makayla Lee

Khiara Makayla Lee is a third-year Maternal and Child Health doctoral student in the Family Science department at the University of Maryland, College Park, where her research is centered on reproductive and perinatal disparities, primarily among African American women in the South. She has a BS in Biology from Tougaloo College and an MPH in Maternal and Child Health from Brown University School of Public Health. Her past research includes investigating breastfeeding disparities, the influence of perinatal food insecurity, maternal care deserts, teen pregnancy, and maternal morbidities and mortality. She is interested in using FFCWS data to examine the concept of thriving among single and unwed mothers and how that may be physically and mentally.

Dr. Qian Li

Dr. Qian Li is an Associate Research Scientist at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. Her research focuses on environmental factors of cancer and chronic diseases, with an emphasis on lifestyle factors, endocrine disruptors, metals, mental stress and diet. Since joining the Energy, Equity, Housing, and Health (E2H2) team in February 2024, Dr. Li has expanded her research to examine household energy insecurity as a critical social and environmental determinant of health. She is particularly interested in its impact on vulnerable populations, including families with children, older adults, and pregnant individuals.

Yi-Fang Lu

Yi-Fang Lu is a Postdoctoral Research Scholar at the Center for Social Science Innovation and Injury Prevention Research Center at the University of Iowa. She received her PhD in Criminology, Law and Society from George Mason University and is currently pursuing her Master of Public Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. During her doctoral training at George Mason, she worked at the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy on a variety of policing research projects primarily to understand how police can better respond to mental health crises in suburban and rural communities. Her research interests include firearm violence, social epidemiology, and crime, health, and place. Her research has been published in peer-reviewed journals including Journal of Urban Health, Injury Prevention, Justice Quarterly, and Journal of Criminal Justice.

Xiaoshuang Iris Luo

Xiaoshuang Iris Luo, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice Studies at the University of Akron. Her primary research interests focus on the community context of crime and health-related issues at the neighborhood level using advanced quantitative methodologies. Her recent project explores the associations between neighborhood environments and behavioral, health and social outcomes using the FFCWS data. Her research has appeared in Criminology, The British Journal of Criminology, Journal of Criminology, International Criminology, Police Quarterly, Policing: An International Journal, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, Social Networks, Sociological Methodology, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Maretta McDonald

Dr. Maretta McDonald is an award-winning sociologist who currently holds a government research and policy analyst position. She is also an affiliate faculty member in the Sociology department at Virginia Tech. Dr. McDonald recently completed a two- year appointment as a National Poverty Fellow of the Institute for Research on Policy at UW-Madison. She earned her Ph.D. in sociology from LSU in 2022. Dr. McDonald’s primary professional and academic expertise is in the realms of child support enforcement policy and fatherhood. She has been an avid user of FFCW data since 2015 when she analyzed the data in her masters thesis. In 2020, Dr. McDonald published research using FFCW data in the edited volume, Introduction to Africana Demography. She is currently working on two projects using FFCW data and is very excited about the possibility for child support research that the newest wave provides.

Seunghyun (Max) Moon

Seunghyun (Max) Moon is a Ph.D. candidate in Social Work at the University of Georgia. His research examines the intersection of precarious employment, family formation, child rearing strategies, and intergenerational social mobility, with a particular focus on how social policies shape these dynamics. Moon earned dual bachelor’s degrees in International Relations and Social Welfare from Yonsei University, where he developed a foundation in comparative welfare policy. During his undergraduate studies, he spent a year in the Netherlands as an exchange student through a European Studies program, which deepened his interest in welfare regimes.

He holds a Master of Social Work from Yonsei University’s Graduate School of Social Welfare and a second master’s degree in International Social Change and Policy from the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom. His graduate studies centered on youth labor market challenges and family formation trends, viewed through a comparative policy lens. Before beginning his doctoral studies, Moon worked as a research intern at the Korean Women’s Development Institute (KWDI) and later as a full-time researcher at the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs (KIHASA). At KIHASA, he contributed to several national research projects on low fertility and labor market insecurity.

Favour Omondi 

Favour Omondi is a third year Ph.D. student in the department of Human Development and Family Studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Her research focuses on the examination of child maltreatment, specifically physical and supervisory neglect in young children, among families living in poverty. Additionally, she is interested in the creation of policies aimed to prevent the occurrence of neglect and improve the psychological wellbeing of children inspired by her background in Psychology. 

Ryan Parsons

Ryan Parsons earned his bachelor’s degrees in international studies and Chinese from the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College at the University of Mississippi, and an M.Phil. degree in development studies from the University of Cambridge. In May 2022, he completed his doctorate in the joint degree program in sociology and social policy from Princeton University.

His general interests cover community and urban sociology, political sociology, and stratification. His research is motivated by prior experience working in China and the Mississippi Delta region. For his dissertation he studied the structure of community life, race relations, and reactions to economic change in a rural Mississippi town.

Henry Pennerman

Henry Pennerman is a second-year doctoral student in the sociology department at Arizona State University. His dissertation project examines how racial discrimination and gendered expectations influence Black fathers’ identities and parenting practices in San Diego County. His research with Black fathers is aimed at being a form of advocacy that focuses on celebrating their emotional presence, engagement, adaptability, and enduring commitment. In collaboration with local communities, he believes we can build a new narrative where Black fathers are respected, their voices amplified, and their stories accurately and honorably told. His work aims to inspire policymakers, educators, community leaders, and everyday individuals to actively support and advocate for Black fathers.

Tyler Quinn

Tyler Quinn - 2nd year PhD student at Yale School of Nursing and adjunct professor at Central Connecticut University within the nursing department. His research interests include father-child relationship quality in low-resource settings and paternal involvement in prenatal care. Professionally, he worked as a registered nurse in an emergency department and clinical research coordinator in the pediatric ICU before pursuing his PhD. 

Gabriel Reyes

Gabriel Reyes is a PhD student in Developmental and Psychological Sciences at Stanford University and a Knight-Hennessy Scholar and Quad Fellow. Their research examines how poverty influences child and adolescent development, with a particular focus on how financial scarcity and instability affect psychological wellbeing, behavior, and educational motivation. Drawing on a background in cognitive neuroscience, Gabriel is also interested in the effects of poverty on learning and memory.

Originally from Albuquerque, NM raised by Mexican immigrants and a first-generation college graduate, Gabriel holds an honors ScB in Cognitive Neuroscience from Brown University and an MS in Neuroscience and Education from Columbia University, where they studied as a QuestBridge and Gates Millennium Scholar. In addition to their academic work, Gabriel is the founder of FLi Sci, a national nonprofit that supports first-generation and low-income (FLi) students on the path to scientific research careers, including PhD programs.

Kendall Riley

Kendall Riley is a PhD candidate in the University of Iowa’s Department of Sociology and Criminology. Her research investigates how the social environment shapes physical health and contributes to racial disparities in health. In her dissertation, she develops multi-institutional measures of the state social environment to examine how state laws, policies, and institutions geospatially pattern signs of unhealthy aging among Black and White women. Her work has been supported by the American Society of Criminology’s Ruth D. Peterson Fellowship and the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program. Riley holds an M.A. in sociology from the University of Iowa and dual B.S. degrees in human biology and psychology from Indiana University. Her work has been published in Social Science and Medicine, Journal of Crime and Justice, and the Journal of Aging and Health.

Sarah Riley

Sarah Riley is a senior researcher at the Vera Institute of Justice, where she studies carceral systems, race/ism, and cumulative theft. Her recent work investigates the impact of paternal incarceration on maternal labor market outcomes, positioning mass incarceration as a key driver of gender inequality. Sarah has an MPP from the University of California, Berkely and a PhD in information science from Cornell University.

Grace C. Sementilli 

Grace C. Sementilli is a PhD candidate at the University at Buffalo’s Department of Sociology and Criminology. Her research interests span urban sociology, the impact of community-based organizations on communities, and international migrants’ navigation of private sector housing in the United States. She is specifically interested in the experience of eviction, and the connection between institutional resources and socioeconomic mobility within neighborhoods.

Deena Shariq

Deena Shariq (she/hers) is a PhD candidate in the Neuroscience and Cognitive Science program at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her research centers on understanding how environmental factors shape child development and promote resilience among children and adolescents experiencing socioeconomic hardship. Specifically, she examines how neighborhood and community factors—such as safety, access to parks, and social cohesion—serve as protective factors against the influence of adversity on youths’ socioemotional and cognitive development. Deena uses mixed methods and community-based participatory research approaches to address these research aims, in addition to using large-scale population-based datasets such as the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development Study and the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study.

Meredith Slopen

Meredith Slopen is a Postdoctoral Research Scholar at the CUNY Graduate Center’s Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality. Building on a career at the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, her scholarship focuses on the impacts of workplace and labor policies on health and economic security at critical junctures in the life course. Slopen will join the faculty of Stony Brook School of Social Welfare in September 2025.

Charis Stanek

Charis Stanek (she/her/hers) is an MSW-PhD student at The Ohio State University College of Social Work. Charis received her B.A. in psychology and sociology from Oberlin College in 2018 and her M.A. in social sciences, with a concentration in psychology, from the University of Chicago in 2020. Charis has experience working with foster youth as both a case manager and a clinical social work intern in residential treatment centers. Her research largely explores risk and protective factors for adolescents and young adults after they experience major life events or experiences of trauma, and in particular, the influence of positive relationships, sense of purpose/meaning-making, and culturally response mental health interventions on mental health outcomes broadly. She has a specific interest in promoting mental health among current and former foster youth.

Mindy Szeto

Mindy Szeto conducted research in math modeling, protein engineering, and bioinformatics at the University of Washington, University of Colorado, and Johns Hopkins University prior to a Health and Biomedical Informatics PhD track at Northwestern University's Health Sciences Integrated Program. She has experience leading genetic epidemiology studies of complex traits in understudied populations, and is currently mentored by Future of Families Cardiovascular Health Study investigators Don Lloyd-Jones and Dan Notterman. Most recently, she analyzed DNA methylation data to explore how early life exposures may impact downstream health outcomes, with potential mediation of these effects by epigenetic age acceleration measures.

Kirstin Vollrath

Kirstin Vollrath is completing a Doctorate in Clinical Nutrition (DCN) at the University of North Florida. She is a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist (RDN) and holds an MS in Nutrition from University of Houston. Her research interests include factors influencing diet quality and nutrition security. Her dissertation explores exposures to material hardship in childhood and associated risks for food insecurity in young adulthood. She is a Professor of Practice in Nutrition and Assistant Director of the Dietetic Internship program in the Department of Health and Human Performance at University of Houston.

Erin Walton 

Erin Walton is a Clinical Social Worker focused on healthcare and health equity in Baltimore City. Her clinical expertise lies in interpersonal violence and trauma, with research interests at the intersection of trauma, violence, and the environment. She is a 2024 UMB President’s Fellow and a member of the Coalition for Compassionate Prison Reform. Erin recently completed the second year of her PhD program and is continuing her investigation into the underlying causes of gun violence in Baltimore.

Shaofan Wang

Shaofan Wang (he/his/him) is a first-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Psychology at the University of Hong Kong. Before, he earned a Master of Philosophy in school counseling from Beijing Normal University, a Bachelor of Science in applied psychology with a counseling specialization from Beijing Forestry University, and a Minor in economics from Peking University. He has been a loyal fan and user of the FFCWS project for around four years. Dedicated to the pursuit of “Psychological Research in Real Lives,” his professional aspiration is to become a renowned family and developmental psychologist. And his goal is to apply findings from basic academic studies to improve the well-being and development of children, adolescents, and young adults, particularly those facing challenging situations.

His primary research interests are Early Life Adversity, Differential Susceptibility, Resilience from Adversity, and Causal Inference in Developmental Psychopathology. Currently, he is actively approaching early life adversity from a dimensional and strength-based perspective, such as working towards an integrative model that incorporates threat, deprivation, and unpredictability dimensions, as well as exploring the heterogeneity in the developmental outcomes of early adverse experiences, by considering an adaptation-based approach to resilience (e.g., hidden talents), or Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs) involved. He always welcomes opportunities to establish professional connections within the academic and industry community and could be reached out to via [email protected]

Briana Weston

Briana Weston (she/hers) is a PhD student at Sacred Heart University and a Licensed Master Social Worker. She also serves as an adjunct faculty member at Austin Community College. Her research centers around addressing the school-to-prison pipeline through examination of exclusionary discipline practices. Specifically, she is looking at how in school and out of school suspensions influence the trajectory of African American students’ graduation and/or dropout rates and potential entry into the criminal justice system.

Krista P. Woodward

Krista P. Woodward is currently a 4th year doctoral student in the Population, Family, and Reproductive Health Department at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her primary research interests include adverse and positive childhood experiences (ACEs & PCEs) and systems-level solutions to promote health and well-being across the life course. Her dissertation is focused on the effects of co-occurring ACEs and PCEs among parentally bereaved youth on health behaviors and mental health outcomes later in the life course. Prior to joining Hopkins, she worked at the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) as a Program Officer in the Public and Patient Engagement Department supporting research engagement practices in the PCOR workforce. She completed her dual MPH and MSW degrees at Washington University in St. Louis and BS in Psychology at Lafayette college.

Ying Xu

Ying Xu is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Human Development and Family Science at Syracuse University. Her research focuses on the intergenerational transmission of parenting and trauma, as well as the longitudinal impacts of childhood adversities on mental health and family dynamics across adulthood. Before pursuing her Ph.D., Ying earned a Master of Arts in Human Development and Family Science from Syracuse University, along with a Certificate of Advanced Study (CAS) in trauma-informed practice. Her academic journey was preceded by 11 years of impactful work with a leading American non-governmental organization (NGO) in China. This organization provided nurturing, educational, rehabilitative, and various other intervention services to orphans, left-behind children, and immigrant children. During this time, she traveled extensively, visiting more than 30 Children’s Welfare Institutions and rural communities across 23 Chinese provinces and regions. These experiences deepened her understanding of the challenges faced by vulnerable children and families, ultimately inspiring her transition into academia to further explore human development and family systems.

Xuelei Xu

Xuelei Xu is a first-year Ph.D. student in Health Behavior at Indiana University Bloomington, School of Public health. Her research focuses on the developmental trajectories of youth mental health, particularly the interplay between family dynamics, socioeconomic adversity, and psychological well-being. With a background in clinical medicine and public health, she brings a biopsychosocial lens to the study of adolescent development. Her current projects are to examine how maternal depressive symptom patterns from childbirth to adolescence predict youth internalizing and externalizing problems and explore the influence of family and peer support on mental health among minority college students, with attention to generational and cultural factors. At the workshop, she will use the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to investigate how parental engagement, material hardship, and romantic relationships shape youth mental health outcomes across time.

Shuya Yin

Shuya Yin is a second-year social work PhD student from Brown School, Washington University in St.Louis. Across nine years, Shuya navigated diverse cultural and professional terrains, delivering crucial mental health services to trauma-affected children and families. Shuya is passionate about building the evidence base for mental health and preventive interventions, particularly for vulnerable children, youth, and families.

Maria Zangari

Maria Zangari is a Master of Arts candidate in Sociology at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, Canada. Her master's research explores how parent-child and sibling relationships foster resilience in children exposed to parental gender-based violence, with attention to family hardiness and contextual factors. Maria is currently analyzing data from wave 6 of the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS) to examine how caregiver-child relationship perceptions influence adolescent social behavior and connectedness, with plans to expand this work using wave 7 data and to apply a life course perspective to explore long-term developmental outcomes. She is committed to advancing research that supports evidence-based policies and interventions promoting child, youth, and family wellbeing.

Qihao Zhan

Qihao Zhan is a third‑year PhD student in the School of Social Work at the University of Illinois Urbana‑Champaign and a licensed social worker in the state of Illinois. Her research examines protective and promotive factors of dating violence among adolescent and young adult populations. She holds BS degrees in Psychology and Family & Human Development, as well as an MSW and an MPA from Arizona State University. Through her work, she aims to inform and strengthen evidence‑based youth violence prevention programs.

Yushan Zhao

Yushan Zhao is a second-year Ph.D. student in the Human Development Graduate Program at UC Davis. Her research examines the sense of belonging experienced by college students from various demographic backgrounds. She focuses on the impact of this sense of belonging on students' college success, especially in terms of academic achievement. Yushan is currently analyzing the UC Davis Sense of Belonging Intervention Data Set to study the relationship between students' sense of belonging and their class attendance as her initial research project in the Ph.D. program. She also has an interest in family resilience among stepfamilies. Her research has involved identifying protective factors, such as parental practices and school support, for adolescents in stepfamilies in China and the U.S. Before commencing her Ph.D., Yushan volunteered with the Chinese Parents Association for the Disabled, providing services to Chinese American children with developmental disabilities.

Tianmei Zhu

Tianmei Zhu (she/her) is a doctoral student in the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences at the University of Connecticut. She holds a BA in Psychology and Economics from Smith College. Her research focuses on coparenting, couple relationships, and family members’ individual well-being. Centered in a family context, her work explores family dynamics across diverse family structures and within varying cultural and social settings.