Allison Bielak - Associate Professor
Dr. Bielak’s training is in lifespan developmental psychology, focusing on the factors that contribute to individual differences in cognitive aging, particularly identifying risk factors for decline and optimizing influences for achieving healthy cognitive aging. Dr. Bielak’s expertise is in two primary areas: intraindividual variability (IIV) in cognitive speed, and activity engagement and cognition in older adulthood. Dr. Bielak also has extensive experience working with and analyzing longitudinal datasets, and has developed skills in advanced statistical methods such as multilevel modeling, and bivariate dual change score modeling.
Ally Brothers - Associate Professor
Dr. Brothers is a lifespan developmental scientist, with research focusing on the promotion of healthy aging throughout the lifespan. Dr. Brothers’ areas of interest include attitudes toward aging and awareness of age-related change, and the influence of attitudes toward aging on health, well-being, and health behaviors. Dr. Brothers is trained in measurement development, program evaluation, and advanced statistics. Dr. Brother is currently involved in community-based participatory research projects in which they partner with community members and local professionals to better understand how to promote healthy aging in our community.
Katie Gerst - Assistant Professor
Dr. Gerst’s scholarly interests include gender and power dynamics in romantic relationships, maternal mental health, and the scholarship of teaching and learning in family science.
Ashley Harvey - Associate Professor
Dr. Harvey spent her early career investigating gender roles in dual earner couples as well as the human-animal bond and grief. More recently, her scholarly interests have coalesced around two main areas: attachment in romantic relationships and the scholarship of teaching.
Susan Hepburn - Professor
Dr. Hepburn’s research interests focus on Autism, individual differences, improving access to timely identification and school-based interventions, family-focused interventions, and co-occurring conditions.
Jen Krafchick - Associate Professor
Dr. Krafchick serves as Co-Director of the Campus Connections Youth Mentoring Program that connects youth who have experienced adversity with university student mentors and graduate student therapists. The Campus Connections lab focuses on the development and evaluation of effective preventive interventions to improve developmental outcomes of adolescents and college students.
David MacPhee - Professor Emeritus, Director of the Prevention Research Center Community-University-State Partnerships Division
Dr. MacPhee is the director of Community-University Partnerships in the Prevention Research Center, where his work and appointments straddle HDFS, public health, and social work. His collaborative work in communities, applied research, and teaching focus on various facets of prevention science: risk and resilience, program planning and implementation, parenting and family-based interventions, and especially program evaluation. Lately, his focus on promoting individual and family resilience has expanded into communities’ resilience, specifically their civic capacity and how it relates to community members’ health and well-being.
Lilyana Ortega - Assistant Professor
Dr. Ortega’s research broadly focuses on prevention and intervention programs geared towards youth. Dr. Ortega is especially interested in evaluating and understanding programs that use restorative justice approaches in school and community-based settings. Another line of work explores victimization, risk and resilience in order to assist youth in obtaining more positive developmental outcomes.
Nate Riggs - Professor, Executive Director of the Prevention Research Center
Dr. Riggs is a prevention scientist devoted to promoting positive youth socioemotional development. A primary research interest is translating basic research in developmental neuroscience to school-based and family-focused interventions that prevent child and adolescent behavioral health problems. Dr. Riggs is the Director of the CSU Prevention Research Center, a campus-wide trans-disciplinary center committed to studying the development, implementation, and evaluation of effective and sustainable preventive interventions across the lifespan. Dr. Riggs is committed to training the next generation of prevention researchers and practitioners. Dr. Riggs has served as the chair of HDFS graduate programs and served on the board of directors for the Society for Prevention Research, where they chaired the training committee that sets the Society’s national agenda for training in prevention science research. Recently funded projects include those that provide statewide training and technical assistance to prevention practitioners implementing community-based preventive interventions.
CK Rizzo - Assistant Professor
Currently Dr. Rizzo’s research and practice focuses on the developmental impact of childhood trauma. In the CFCT clinic, Dr. Rizzo conducts and supervises comprehensive assessments on children and adolescents with a history of trauma. Assessments include neurocognitive testing, a psychosocial interview, and collaboration with other professionals serving the child and/or family. Results from assessments are meant to take into account the impact of trauma on topics such as treatment, placement, education, and/or family relationships for the child. The center works closely with a variety of professionals such as guardian ads litem, therapists, social workers, psychiatrists, and educators, as well as family members with the aim of protecting the child and building resilience in the context of a safe environment.
Aimee Walker - Assistant Professor
Dr. Walker’s research interests include early prevention and family support programs; early childhood education, school readiness; pedagogy in applied human sciences; parenting across the lifespan; parenting education; and using advanced person- and variable-centered methodologies to inform intervention/prevention science.
