Meet the Organizers
Event
SRCD Anti-Racist Developmental Science Summit: Transforming Research, Practices, and Policies
Dr. Velma McBride Murry
Dr. Velma McBride Murry holds the Lois Autrey Betts Endowed Chair, serves as Co-Director of the Vanderbilt University Medical Center Program for Health Equity Research, and is a University Distinguished Professor in Departments of Health Policy [Vanderbilt School of Medicine] and Human and Organizational Development [Peabody College]. She is Past President of the Society for Research on Adolescence and current President of The International Consortium of Developmental Science Societies. McBride Murry is one of the 100 elected members to the 2020 Class of the National Academic of Medicine. She was recently appointed to the National Institutes of Health National Advisory Mental Health Research Council. Her research examines the significance of context to everyday life experiences of African American families and youth, focusing on processes through which racism, and other social structural stressors, cascade through families to influence parenting and family functioning, with distal consequences for both mental and physical health outcomes.
Dr. Emilie Smith
Dr. Emilie Smith is a Professor of Human Development and Family Studies, the Inaugural College of Social Science Distinguished Senior Scholar, at Michigan State University. Her community-engaged research seeks to understand the ways in which families, schools, and communities interact to affect positive youth development, and particularly, racial-ethnic identity and socialization among those of diverse socio-economic and geographic backgrounds. Her work involves rigorous, randomized trials and multilevel methods to examine family and community approaches that reduce disparities and increase equity drawing upon interdisciplinary partnerships. Her work at the local and national levels has demonstrated effective approaches to engaging families into promotion and prevention research using group-based family and community, culturally-informed approaches to promote equity. Her work on racial-ethnic identity, socialization and social justice approaches to positive youth development is highly cited in the field. Smith has received millions of dollars in national and foundation funding, along with numerous local and national awards for her research. Smith is a Fellow of Division 27 (Community) of the American Psychological Association and incoming Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Community Psychology. She currently serves on the elected Governing Council of the Society for Research on Child Development.