Human Development and Family Sciences

Kelly Chandler, Ph.D.
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, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
HDFS Doctoral Program Director

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, Ph.D.
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, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
OSU-Cascades

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, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
OSU-Cascades

Shannon’s research identifies ways to promote resilience among young children, families, and early childhood teachers and providers.

Katherine (Kate) MacTavish, Ph.D.
Associate Professor

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, Ph.D.
Professor
Katherine E. Smith Healthy Children and Families Professor, Hallie Ford Director for the Center for Healthy Children and Families

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, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor (Practice)

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, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Barbara E. Knudson Endowed Chair in Family Policy

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.

Richard A. Settersten, Jr., Ph.D.
University Distinguished Professor
Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs

Rick's research focuses on life course; age and aging; transitions; social relationships; historical experiences and social change; parenthood and family life; social policy.

Shauna Tominey, Ph.D.
Associate Professor

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.