Karen Diamond

ECE
There is substantial evidence that young children who are at-risk enter school already behind their peers. Dr. Diamond's research focuses on the development and evaluation of interventions with early childhood teachers that support the academic and social development of young children at-risk.

Diversity
While it is increasingly common for young children with disabilities to participate in preschool with typically developing peers, children with disabilities have fewer opportunities for social interactions with peers. Dr. Diamond's research focuses on typically developing children's ideas about age-mates with disabilities and influences on children's decisions to include a peer with a disability in play.

Jennifer Dobbs

ECE
Dr. Dobbs's research is focused on the relationship between pre-academic skills and social-emotional development in preschool-aged children. A particular area of focus is on interventions directed toward literacy and mathematical skills and their outcomes in both pre-academic and psychosocial domains.

James Elicker

Early Childhood
Dr. Elicker is investigating child care quality and young children's development in early care and education contexts. (Evaluation of Child Care Quality Rating Systems; Child Care Quality and Child Outcomes in Low Income Working Families)

Relationships
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

Adult Development and Aging
Emotional qualities of relationships improve across adulthood; as they grow older, adults report better relationships with their children, spouses, extended family, and friends. Dr. Fingerman's research examines the emotional qualities of interpersonal ties from young adulthood to late old age and seeks to explain this marked improvement in relationship processes.  
 
Families and Health
The longest period of the parent/child relationship is the two decades when both parties are adults and in relatively good health. Dr. Fingerman's research examines the effects of intergenerational exchanges and emotional patterns on parents' and offspring's well-being from young adulthood to late old age.

Relationships
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

Adult Development and Aging
One of the primary contexts within which adult development occurs is the workplace.  Dr. MacDermid's research has examined connections between work conditions and adult expressions of generativity, or investments in caring for and maintaining the larger society.   
 
Families and Health
Stressful experiences at work have been linked to a variety of health-related behaviors.  Dr. MacDermid is interested in connections between work stressors and psychological and physical well-being.  
 
Relationships
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.  
 
Work and Family
Other than home, the workplace is the setting where adults spend most of their time.  Work conditions influence many aspects of family life, and Dr. MacDermid's research focuses on how challenges and opportunities at work are linked to individual and family well-being.  In recent years, this research has been conducted in both military and civilian settings.  

Daniel Mroczek

Adult Development and Aging
Dr. Mroczek's work looks at how personality and well-being change over time, and how that change is related to physical health and mortality.  

Families & Health
Dr. Mroczek's work looks at how family variables and family contextual variables interact with personality factors to predict physical health, mortality, and other health outcomes.

Judy Myers-Walls

Diversity and Culture
Dr. Myers-Walls' work has included populations from Serbia, Korea, the Philippines, and multiple cultural groups in the U.S. Publications and training programs have focused on the cultural context of parenting and of family life education, and study-abroad programs have allowed students to experience Indian culture in depth.

Relationships
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.

Douglas Powell

ECE
Early literacy and language skills provide an important foundation for later school success, including reading competence. Dr. Powell¹s research focuses on the development and evaluation of professional development interventions with pre-kindergarten teachers aimed at enhancing the early literacy and language development of at-risk preschoolers.

German Posada

Diversity and Culture
Attachment theory suggests that attachment relationships is a universal phenomenon that is sensitive to context. Dr Posada's research investigates central propositions of the theory through studies that include cross-cultural, cross-ethnic, and cross-SES explorations and comparisons to test the generality and specificity of attachment relationships processes.

Relationships
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.

Cleveland Shields

Families and Health
Health concerns are central to family life across the developmental spectrum.  Dr. Shields' research examines how couples and families manage the diagnosis and treatment of cancer.  My students and I study family communication and its effect on adjustment.  We also study how patients and family members communication with healthcare providers affects their mental health and quality of life.

Seung-Hee Son

Diversity and Culture
Dr. Son's research tries to find ways to disentangle a complex web of sociocultural and maturational factors on child development, by comparing low-income, Asian, and Latine-American children's experiences in home and school.

Early Childhood Intervention and Education
Dr. Son's research examines the impact of aspects of the home and preschool learning environment and parental involvement in education on young children's language, literacy and numeracy skills learning and seeks ways to design evidence-based intervention programs for at-risk low-income children's school readiness, especially using home reading and writing activities.

Relationships
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

Relationships
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

Adult Development and Aging
Dr. Whiteman's research examines the family processes related to youth's family relationships and individual adjustment from adolescence into early adulthood. A particular interest is how the transition of older siblings out of the family's home relates to the relationships and functioning of later-born children who still reside in the home.

Families and Health
One of Dr. Whiteman's emerging interests is how siblings influence one another's health risk behaviors in adolescence and early adulthood. Specific attention is paid processes by which older siblings influence their younger brothers' and sisters' alcohol and substance use.

Relationships
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.