Assistant Professor of Human Development and Family Studies

(PhD, The Pennsylvania State University)

Research Interests

Mother-child relationships, family stress, maternal and child physiology,
maternal and child mental and physical health, lactation

Contact Information

Hanley Hall, Room 246
Purdue University
1202 West State St.
West Lafayette, Indiana 47907-2055
Phone: (765) 494-2949
Fax: (765) 496-1144
E-mail: hibel@purdue.edu 
Websites: Family Physiology Laboratory   
                - Family Physiology Project   
                - The Working Mom Project

Curriculum Vitae

• Biography
• Recent Publications
• Education
• Courses Recently Taught
• Honors

Biography

I did my undergraduate work at Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, Maryland. I have always been interested in a biosocial perspective and majored in Behavioral Biology. At the time, my main interest was in non-human primates, and I did an internship at Duke University in the Primate Center. While there I collected data for my undergraduate thesis, and realized that I was not cut out for 9 hour days in the forests following lemurs. I switched gears and after college I became a mental health technician at a mental hospital for children. It was there that I began to see firsthand the devastating impact of family stress and dysfunctional family relationships on child development. I went back to school with the interest in studying how family stressors “get under the skin” to affect the mental and physical health of the family, with a particular focus on mothers and children. Still interested in the biological and sociological contributions to behavior, I sought out another inter-disciplinary program, Biobehavioral Health, at Penn State University, acquiring expertise in stress physiology and non-invasive salivary biomarkers. While at Penn State I also minored in Human Development and Family Studies.

My research focuses on mother-child relationships, family stress/conflict, and stress physiology. I examine how family stress or conflict impacts family relationships and stress physiology, and how stress physiology then affects subsequent family relationships. I am particularly interested in examining the dysregulation of maternal stress physiology as a mechanism of impaired child emotional and physiological regulation. In other words, how maternal stress impacts the child’s development of regulation.

My research has been funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

Refereed Publications

•  
  Hibel, L. C., Senguttavan, U.*, & Bauer, N. (in press). Do state differences moderate the relationship between depressive symptoms and morning cortisol? Hormones and Behavior.
• Hibel, L. C., Mercado, E.*, & Trumbell, J. M.* (2012). Parenting stressors and morning cortisol in a sample of working mothers. Journal of Family Psychology, 26, doi:10.1037/a0029340
• Hibel, L. C., Granger, D. A., Blair, C., Cox, M., & The Family Life Project Investigators. (2011). Maternal sensitivity buffers the adrenocortical implications of intimate partner violence exposure during early childhood. Development and Psychopathology, 23, 689-701.
• Blair, C., Raver, C., Granger, D., Mills-Koonce, W. R., Hibel, L. C., & The Family Life Project Investigators. (2011). Allostasis and Allostatic Load in the Context of Poverty in Early Childhood. Development and Psychopathology, 23, 845-857.
• Carney, J-L., Hazler, R. J., Oh, I., Hibel, L. C., & Granger, D. A. (2010).  The relationships between bullying exposures in middle childhood, anxiety, and adrenocortical activity. Journal of School Violence, 9, 194-199.
• Hibel, L. C., Granger, D. A., Blair, C., Cox, M., & The Family Life Project Investigators. (2009).  Intimate partner violence moderates the relationship between mother-infant adrenocortical responses to an emotional challenge. Journal of Family Psychology, 23, 615-625.
• Granger, D. A., Hibel, L. C., Fortunato, C. K., & Kapelewski C. H. (2009). Medication effects on salivary cortisol: Mechanisms of action, a “watch list”, and tactics to minimize impact in biobehavioral research. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 34, 1437-48.
• Blair, C., Granger, D. A., Kivlighan, K. T., Willoughby, M., Greenberg, M., Hibel, L.C., Fortunato, C. K., & The Family Life Project Investigators. (2008). Maternal and child contributions to cortisol response to emotional arousal in young children from low-income, rural communities. Developmental Psychology, 44, 1095-109.
• Granger, D. A., Fortunato, C., & Hibel, L. C.  (2007). Salivary Hormones in Research and Diagnostics. In D. Wong (Ed), Saliva Diagnostics, Blackwell Press.
• Granger, D. A., Kivlighan, K. T., Fortunato, C., Harmon, A. G., Hibel, L. C., Schwartz, E. B., &  Whembolua, G-L. (2007).  Integration of salivary biomarkers into developmental and behaviorally-oriented research:  Problems and solutions for collecting specimens. Physiology and Behavior, 92, 583-590.
• Granger, D. A., Blair, C., Willoughby, M., Kivlighan, K. T., Hibel., L. C., Fortunato, C., Wiegand, L. E.,  & Family Life Project Investigators. (2007).  Individual differences in salivary cortisol and alpha-amylase in mothers and their infants: Relation to tobacco smoke exposure. Developmental Psychobiology, 49, 692-701.
• Granger, D. A., Cicchetti, D., Rogosch, F., Hibel, L. C., Teisl, M., & Flores, E. (2007). Blood contamination in children’s saliva: Prevalence, stability, and impact on the measurement of salivary cortisol, testosterone, and dehydroepiandrosterone. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 32, 724-733.
• Harmon, A., Hibel, L. C., Rumyantseva, O., & Granger, D. A., (2007). Measuring salivary cortisol in studies of child development: Watch out - what goes in may not come out of commonly used saliva collection devices. Developmental Psychobiology, 49, 495-500.
• Hibel, L. C., Granger, D. A., Cicchetti, D., & Rogosch, F. (2007).  Salivary biomarker levels and diurnal variation: associations with medications prescribed to control children’s problem behavior. Child Development, 78, 927-937.
• Hibel, L. C., Granger, D. A., Kivlighan, K. T., Blair, C., & the Family Life Project Investigators. (2006). Individual differences in salivary cortisol: Associations with common over-the-counter and prescription medication status in infants and their mothers. Hormones and Behavior, 50, 293-30.

Education

• PhD, 2009, Biobehavioral Health, The Pennsylvania State University
  Minor: Human Development and Family Studies
  BA, 2003, Behavioral Biology, The Johns Hopkins University

Courses Recently Taught

• HDFS 201 Introduction to Family Processes
  HDFS 305 Biosocial Perspectives of the Family
  HDFS 330 Sexuality and the Family
  HDFS 640 Biosocial Processes in Developmental and Family Research

Honors

• 2009 Biobehavioral Health Graduate Student Achievement Award
  2006 Hintz Graduate Education Enhancement Fellowship
  2003 Curt Richter award in excellence in research