Faculty

James Elicker

Dr. Elicker is investigating the nature and developmental influences of teacher-caregiver relationships with infants and toddlers in early childhood programs. (Early Head Start; Tuning In)

Karen Fingerman

Adults of all ages place a high value on their interpersonal relationships, but few studies focus on relationships in late life. Dr. Fingerman's research examines ties between adults and their parents (one of the most important relationships of late life) as well as friendships, romantic ties, and the host of other social ties of old age.

Shelley MacDermid

Many marriages are affected by events that occur in the partners' workplaces. Workers' experiences affect not only their own well-being, but reverberate within the marital relationship.  Dr. MacDermid's recent research considers the impact of deployment on marital dynamics.

Judy Myers-Walls

Dr. Myers-Walls' work has focused on the parent-child relationship and how parents talk with children about difficult topics, especially war and peace. Numerous publications have explored processes and alternatives in delivering parenting education to parents, prospective parents, and professionals.

German Posada

Dr. Posada's research focuses on the development of child-parent attachment relationships in infancy and early childhood. It includes both behavioral and representational issues, as well as contextual influences in the development of such relationships. Longitudinal observational methodologies in naturalistic settings are emphasized.

Seung-Hee Son

Dr. Son's research includes longitudinal examination of parenting and home learning environment during early childhood, the extent and impact of parenting changes, bidirectional relations between child development and parenting, and measures of parenting that best predict children's language and literacy development.

Doug Sprenkle

Dr. Sprenkle's work focuses on the key ingredients in therapeutic change that cut across competing models of change-called "common factors" in the change process. These include factors like therapist competence, the therapeutic alliance between therapist and client, and the allegiance of the therapist and researcher to his/her model vis a vis the alternative treatment. These common factors contribute more to the variance in outcome than specific treatment effects.

Shawn Whiteman

Dr. Whiteman's research examines the direct and indirect ways siblings influence family relationships and individual adjustment. A related interest, secondary interest is the application of different research methodologies to the study of family relationships.

Websites

Marriage and Family Therapy

Purdue Individual, Couple and Family Therapy Clinic