Faculty
HDFS Doctoral Degree Program
HDFS faculty are national leaders focused on interdisciplinary research and teaching across four signature areas:
- Transitions across the life course
- Resilience and health across the lifespan
- Families in sociocultural contexts
- Policies and applications of developmental and family science
To contact faculty please go to their college profile pages, linked from their names.
Marc Braverman, PhD
Professor
Extension Family and Community Health Program
Marc's research examines adolescent health; health promotion theory and health interventions; smoking prevention and control; tobacco policy; program evaluation design and analysis; and design and delivery of community programs.
Kelly Chandler, PhD
Associate Professor
Kelly applies a work-family justice lens to study how working conditions, workplace culture, and work-family policies affect the health and daily lives of employees and their families. She also examines the implications of work for family processes, including emotional transmission, family routines, and parental socialization.
John Geldhof, PhD
Associate Professor
HDFS Doctoral Program Director
Currently accepting graduate students
John's research focuses on the development of self-regulation across the lifespan and the relationship between intentional self-regulation and positive developmental outcomes (especially Positive Youth Development). He is also interested in quantitative methodology, both as a research domain and as a tool for optimizing his empirical research. As a substantive topic, his quantitative research focuses on latent variable and multilevel modeling techniques. He is also interested in the analysis of intensive repeated measures data.
Bridget Hatfield, PhD
Associate Professor
Bridget is interested in teacher- and parent-child relationships in early childhood, children’s stress and school readiness skills, quality of early childhood education, teacher professional development, & implications for policy.
Brianne Kothari, PhD
Associate Professor
OSU-Cascades
Currently accepting graduate students
Brianne's research focuses on understanding the experiences and trajectories of at-risk populations as well as on designing, implementing and evaluating developmentally appropriate, family systems focused interventions.
Shannon Lipscomb, PhD
Professor
OSU-Cascades
Currently accepting graduate students
Shannon’s research identifies ways to promote resilience among young children, families, and early childhood teachers and providers.
Katherine (Kate) MacTavish, PhD
Associate Professor
Currently accepting graduate students
Kate's research focuses on rural families and communities, community effects, family management strategies & child/youth development in risky rural contexts, rural housing, rural schools, poverty & community development.
Megan McClelland, PhD
Professor
Katherine E. Smith Healthy Children and Families Professor, Hallie Ford Director for the Center for Healthy Children and Families
Currently accepting graduate students
Dr. McClelland’s research is broadly focused on optimizing children's development, especially as it relates to social and cognitive development and school success. In general, she is interested in the importance of children's self-regulation, executive function, and social competence for success in preschool, elementary school, and throughout the life-span. Her recent research has focused on developing measures of self-regulation and interventions to promote school readiness and success.
Megan Pratt, PhD
Assistant Professor (Practice)
Currently accepting graduate students
Megan's work focuses on understanding early learning at local, state, and national levels, with an emphasis on vulnerable populations. She investigates child care and early learning from the perspectives of the child, family, and workforce. Her work also examines how early learning in both formal (eg child care) and informal, community settings (eg libraries) can best support families with young children.
David Rothwell, MSW, PhD
Associate Professor
Barbara E. Knudson Endowed Chair in Family Policy
Currently accepting graduate students
David studies how the lives of children and families are affected by poverty and economic inequality. Current research focuses on understanding variations in poverty and family policy in rural America, Oregon, and across countries.
Suzanne C. Segerstrom, PhD, MPH
Professor
Jo Anne Leonard Peterson Endowed Chair for Gerontology and Family Studies, Co-Director for the Center for Healthy Aging Research
Currently accepting graduate students
Suzanne’s research addresses the interactions among psychological, cognitive, immunological, and physical health in older adults, especially involving self-regulation and repetitive thought. She uses longitudinal and longitudinal burst as well as quasi-experimental designs to answer research questions about these interactions. As such, she has particular interest and expertise in longitudinal data analysis and multilevel modeling, as well as the measurement properties of biomarkers such as diurnal cortisol.
Richard A. Settersten, Jr., PhD
University Distinguished Professor
Interim Dean
Rick's research focuses on life course; age and aging; transitions; social relationships; historical experiences and social change; parenthood and family life; social policy.
Marilyn S. Thompson, PhD
Professor
School Head, Human Development and Family Sciences
Marilyn's research focuses both on the advancement and application of quantitative methods for analyzing data in the social sciences and on children's academic and socioemotional development. Much of her methodological research has focused on challenges in the application of structural equation modeling. She enjoys interdisciplinary collaborations involving longitudinal, data intensive studies to understand children’s social, emotional, and academic development, often focused on English language learners.
Shauna Tominey, PhD
Associate Professor
Currently accepting graduate students
Shauna's research focuses broadly on social and emotional learning (SEL) for children, youth, and adults. As a former practitioner and family services professional, I blend practical experience with research to develop and test programs focused on the intersections of SEL, identity, and racial/social justice and study how each can be supported for children, youth, and adults in the context of relationships at school, at home, and in the community.