Emily Hanson, MNM, MPA

Emily Hanson, MNM, MPA

  • Doctoral Student
  • HDFS Graduate Students
ees0026@auburn.edu
MW Smith 112
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Emily Hanson is pursuing her PhD in Human Development & Family Science with a Certificate in Advanced Research Methods under the mentorship of Dr. Mallory Lucier-Greer. Her research assistantship supports the Military REACH lab in translating military family research into practical resources for policy makers and service providers. She is passionate about all things HDFS, especially attending other students' dissertation, qualifying exam, and thesis defenses, as well as providing mentorship to new graduate students through the First Year Experience program. In her free time she enjoys gardening and spending time with her husband and two little boys.

Education

  • Master of Nonprofit ManagementUniversity of Central Florida2023

  • Master of Public AdminstrationUniversity of Central Florida2023

  • B.S. Global StudiesAuburn University2018

  • B.A. English LiteratureAuburn University2018

Professional Experience

Research Associate II at Military REACH, Auburn University, Auburn, AL (January 2024-August 2025)

Research Assistant II at Military REACH, Auburn University, Auburn, AL (March 2022-December 2023)

Americorps VISTA at Feeding Tampa Bay, Tampa, FL (July 2020-July 2021)

Fulbright Scholar English Teaching Assistant, Universidade Federal de Sergipe, Brazil (February 2019-November 2019)                                                      

                           

Innovation

Emily's research investigates how families experience, interpret, and respond to financial stress across time and context. Guided by stress theories (e.g., Family Stress Model, ABC-X, Stress Process Model) and family science frameworks (e.g., family systems theory, ecological models), she examines how objective conditions and subjective perceptions of hardship shape individual and family well-being. In particular, she focuses on: (1) how contextual vulnerabilities shape stress exposure and adaptation; (2) how the continuity of hardship contributes to patterns of disadvantage over time; and (3) how families mobilize personal, interpersonal, and structural resources to cope with economic adversity. 

To date, her work has identified a variety of socioecological correlates of food insecurity severity to differentiate the qualitative experiences of worrying about food (low food security) versus reducing food consumption (very low food security). She has also examined the assumptions of the Family Stress Model and Family Systems Theory using advanced dyadic analyses such as the Common Fate and Actor-Partner Interdependence Models. 

Her future research aims to leverage longitudinal methods to clarify the temporal ordering of these associations, distinguishing factors that function as antecedents, consequences, or reciprocal processes in the development and maintenance of food insecurity and related forms of family hardship. 

Teaching Experience

Prior to pursuing her PhD, Emily designed and taught weekly university elective courses ranging in topics from American pop culture to the American political system as a Fulbright Scholar in Brazil. She also prepared and led bi-monthly, 16-hour certificate courses for university students on in-depth topics such as American identity and culture. 

During her time at Auburn, she has provided guest lectures on cultural adaptation and the ABCX Model to undergraduate students in HDFS 2000. 

She has also served as an Instructor of Record for HDFS 4670: Parent Education, wherein she guided junior and senior-level students in exploring parent-child relationships and best practices for effective parent education programs, as well as building skills and knowledge for creating and facilitating parent education programs. 

Her teaching philosophy centers on a collaborative approach that engages students by connecting course material to their lived experiences and professional goals. She emphasizes scaffolding and demonstration to support students’ learning, and she is deeply committed to strengthening students’ research literacy so they can confidently interpret and translate empirical findings to the populations they will serve.

 

Selected Publications and Presentations

Tidwell, A. L., O’Neal, C. W., Hanson, E., Frye-Cox, N., & Lucier-Greer, M. (2026). Qualitative examination of participants’ reactions to an app-based military cultural competence training for helping professionals. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 52(2), Article e70130. https://doi.org/10.1111/jmft.70130

Lucier-Greer, M., Cooper, E., Hanson, E., O’Neal, C. W., & Tidwell, A. (Under review). Implications of economic hardship for child well-being in active and reserve component U.S. military families: Applying the family stress model. Family Process.

Hanson, E., Lucier-Greer, M., O’Neal, C. W., & Bowdren, E. (Under review). Ecological correlates of low and very low food security among military-connected families: What matters and for whom? Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment.

Hanson, E., Vandenberg, C., Short, K., Sjolseth, S., O’Neal, C. W., & Lucier-Greer, M. (2023). Community capacity building: Mobilizing community supports to facilitate the integration of military families. Auburn, AL: Military REACH. https://aub.ie/MilitaryREACH-CCBReport

Hanson, E., Lucier-Greer, M., Saxey, M. T., Frye-Cox, N., & O'Neal, C. W. (2026, November). In it Together: A Common-Fate Actor-Partner Model of Couple-Level Financial Anxiety, Emotion Regulation, and Health in Military Dyads [Paper presentation]. 2026 National Council on Family Relations Annual Conference, Minneapolis, MN, United States. (National) 

  • Awarded Military and Veteran Families Outstanding Proposal Award (student/new professional)