My research interests focus on stress within family systems and how the family and members of the family react to and manage stress. As a clinician with training as a marriage and family therapist and certified family life educator, my work tends to utilize a family systems lens and focus on the intersection of stress and resilience (although I will be the first to note that defining and measuring resilience is tricky business). Accordingly, studies that I author and co-author tend to identify intra-familial protective factors (couple and family processes, such as relational warmth, communication and disclosure, accepting influence, and support, and individual assets, such as self-efficacy and a help seeking mindset) and extra-familial protective factors (e.g., support from resources outside the family, attending family programs or therapy) that are associated with healthier individual and familial outcomes as proxies for resilience.

As a family scientist, I recognize that diversity exists across families, and my team works to account for and address diverse family structures, experiences, and contexts. Accounting for family diversity looks different depending on the research questions at hand, but I expect members of the lab to carefully consider (1) how our research is situated within theory and the extant research literature, (2) if/how our research has implications beyond the immediate scope of the study, (3) what voices and perspectives were not represented in the study, and (4) how we can keep getting better as scientists in our next studies.

While I study and teach about family stress broadly, my lab is primarily focused on the well-being of military families. (See more below about what that means for students I mentor). It may be helpful to know that I do not come from a military family and that I did not know when I graduated with my PhD that I would become a military family scientist. Rather, I saw an opportunity to serve, and I realized that my training in human development and family science has equipped me to effectively partner with agencies such as the Department of Defense, Department of the Army, Department of the Air Force, and Department of Agriculture to fill in some gaps and address needs regarding military family readiness. As family scientists, we bring many assets to the table. We are:

• Theoretically grounded – We “see” families though several important lenses to understand family processes.
• Systems perspective – We understand the interconnections of individuals and the systems in which they reside (e.g., the family system and the military system).
• Contextual approach – We identify how one’s context (e.g., family, peer group, community, workplace) has an impact on their resources and well-being.
• Developmental mindset – We utilize a life span developmental perspective and recognize that timing matters (e.g., historical time, individual development, family development)
• Scientifically focused – We are trained to empirically address a range of research questions. **I strongly encourage you to take research methods and stats classes to prepare you for work in the lab and your future (e.g., program evaluation, measurement, structural equation modeling, longitudinal growth modeling)

Work in the lab has included several research projects that all speak to issues of family readiness, including:

2017-23 Military REACH: Mobilizing Research to Support Military Family Readiness. Primary objective: To provide high-quality resources to the Department of Defense (DoD) in the form of research and professional development tools across the spectrum of family support and readiness.

2018-23 A Comprehensive Evaluation of the Air Force Personal Financial Readiness Program. Primary objective: To develop and implement a comprehensive evaluation for the Department of the Air Force’s Personal Financial Readiness program.

2016-18 Evaluation Plan for Army Community Service: Mobilization, Deployment and Stability Support Operations. Primary objective: To provide ACS with a high quality, formal evaluation plan of its mobilization and deployment program.

2016-17 Enhancing Leader Development through Relationships: Applying the Relationships Motivation Theory to Identify Cadet Training Opportunities. Primary objective: To support participant compensation for the ongoing multi-informant study of ROTC cadets.

2014-15 Perceived Stress and Mental Health in Military Families: A Stress Process Perspective Investigating the Roles of Self-Efficacy and Martial Warmth. Primary objective: To examine how military-related stressors and protective couple processes influence the mental health of service members and their partners.

All people are welcome in this lab regardless of sex, gender, race, age, nationality, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, and/or physical and mental abilities. Members of the lab bring to the workplace a range of past experiences and perspectives which I value and respect. I expect members of the lab to treat each other with respect, kindness, and collegiality. We won’t always “get it right” when it comes to interacting with each other and discussing difficult topics that arise when it comes to studying families, but the expectation is that the lab is a safe place to work and when challenges arise, we address those challenges with professionalism. A few guiding principles for everyday interactions and difficult conversations:

• Give the other person the benefit of the doubt. Conversations tend to go better when we start by assuming the actions of the other person were not intentionally hurtful/mean/ugly. In other words, utilize positive regard.
• Be slow to speak and quick to listen. Seek to understand the situation and the perspective of others.
• Speak about behaviors and your needs. Name calling or disparaging words do not make situations better, and they will not be tolerated in the workplace. When possible, refer to specific behaviors and situations when bringing up concerns, and identify what changes are needed.
• Seek support from me and other team leaders. If an uncomfortable situation arises and you need support in addressing it, reach out to me or others in the lab for guidance. We are happy to help problem solve.

In short, my goal is to get you where you want to be. Past students are now in diverse career fields (e.g., clinicians, policy advisors), although the majority are in traditional academic roles focused on research and teaching. To support you in getting where you want to be, I want to hear about your dreams and goals (and updates to dreams and goals as they often change!). I often know of opportunities (e.g., internships, research projects, additional coursework) that may help advance your training. When you have new opportunities arise, I strongly encourage you to discuss them with me so that we can think through your current commitments, your time available, and if the opportunity will help you grow in a new way. There are lots of great opportunities but only so many hours in the day!

The lab has grown over the years, so I use a stepwise approach to mentorship, such that I expect post docs to mentor doctoral students, doctoral students to mentor master’s students, and master’s students to mentor undergraduate students. This does not replace my mentorship; rather, it gives you several sources of knowledge and experience to draw on. It also allows you to save time with me to be more focused. Each week, I typically meet with the whole research team for about an hour to discuss grant-related deliverables, assistantship tasks, and general work in the lab. I also meet with students who are my advisees in a group mentoring session for about an hour each week to discuss theses, qualifying exams, dissertations, and other individual projects. Individual meetings are available as well; just ask me to find a time.

As mentioned previously, my primary research focus is related to military family readiness and well-being, and the expectation is that students’ research interests will overlap with that in some way. I have mentored students with a range of interests related to family science, including but not limited to parenting stress, co-parenting after divorce, family leisure, accepting influence within couple relationships, the role of video games in family relationships, coping resources among adolescents, and the use of programs and therapy to promote healthy outcomes.

I have found lots of success in identifying overlap in my own research agenda with the interests of students, and I am open to conversations to identify how our interests may fit together. With that said, I will only take on ~1 new student a year (as a mentee and assistantship funding) and will give priority to students who have an interest in military family readiness, stress, and well-being or can clearly articulate how their interest will complement this type of work.

My expectations for students working in my lab (e.g., assistantship, directed study) include:

• Give a lot of darns. I have very high expectations for your work. The goal is excellence. To produce excellent work, you must care about the task, work hard, and seek resources as needed.
• Be a problem solver. When you encounter a struggle in your work, I should not be the first person you turn to. That is not to be rude or aloof, but rather to encourage you to use your resources (e.g., others in the lab, Google, YouTube, your textbooks) to think through the situation. I want you to come to me with potential solutions or at least some solutions you already tried.
• Use feedback. This line of work (and most lines of work) requires you to regularly receive constructive criticism. I expect you to listen to feedback from those more experienced in the lab and from me. I want to see that feedback incorporated on future tasks. I will stop reviewing or send work back when the same mistakes are made repeatedly.
• Communicate regularly. You will be working on a big team, thus you need to communicate things like progress on work tasks (especially if a task is taking longer than expected), needs related to tasks, when you will be out of the office, etc.
• Treat others with respect. Plain and simple. See above.

My expectations for my advisees (i.e., I am your major professor) include:

• Everything listed above, plus …
• Planning big goals on an annual basis. Be a planner. Plans can change, but if you don’t lay them out and share them with others, they are more likely to slip away. For example, if you want to defend your thesis next year, I want you to work backwards and create a timeline for that goal.
• Come to mentorship meetings prepared. I would like you to take notes when we talk and report back on your progress.
• Share with me when you are struggling with goals or deadlines. You are first and foremost a human. You are allowed to have bad days and bad weeks. Keep me in the loop when you need more time for a task. You are in the driver’s seat. My job is to serve as the guardrails for your journey.

My commitment to students is to:

• Lead by example via hard work, giving lots of darns, and being quick to listen.
• Create an environment of inclusion, responsibility, and collegiality.
• Connect students to opportunities and professional networks.
• Have a flexible mentoring style that is responsive to the needs of students.
• Provide high levels of support while also fostering autonomy and problem solving.
• Manage conflict that arises in the lab.
• Challenge students to always get better and to produce high quality work.
• Prepare students for big milestones (e.g., thesis defense, national presentation) with ongoing feedback.
• Treat students as colleagues-in-training (I want our discipline to be filled with excellent family scientist and I look forward to working with you for years to come!)