SRCD Welcomes the incoming President-Elect, Secretary, and Governing Council Members

Vonnie C. McLoyd, Ph.D., is the Ewart A. C. Thomas Collegiate Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan. She earned a Ph.D. in developmental psychology at the University of Michigan. Her research focuses on how economic stressors influence children’s socioemotional well-being and developmental experiences, with a focus on family processes as both mediating and buffering influences. She has also investigated how contextual, psychological, and cultural factors shape African American parenting.

Deborah Rivas-Drake, Ph.D., is a Professor of Education and Psychology at the University of Michigan. Together with the Contexts of Academic + Socioemotional Adjustment (CASA) Lab, she examines how school, peer, family, and community settings can support adolescents in navigating issues related to race and ethnicity, and how these experiences inform young people’s academic, socioemotional, and civic development.

Nancy Gonzales, Ph.D., is Provost Pro Tempore and Foundation Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University. On July 1, 2021, she will become an Executive Vice President and University Provost. Her research examines culturally-informed models of family and youth resilience in low-income communities. Over the past 20 years, her work has contributed important insights into the cultural strengths, challenges, and positive development of Mexican Americans living in the Southwest.

Kathryn Hirsh-Pasek, Ph.D., is the Stanley and Debra Lefkowitz Faculty Fellow in the Department of Psychology at Temple University and a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Her research examines the development of early language and literacy as well as the role of play in learning. With her long-term collaborator, Roberta Golinkoff, she is author of 14 books and hundreds of publications.

Eleanor K. Seaton, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor and Director of Interdisciplinarity and Intersectionality in the School of Social and Family Dynamics at Arizona State University. She studies racial discrimination and racial identity among African American and Caribbean Black youth. Her work focuses on resilience and positve youth development because she desires to understand how some Black youth thrive despite the pervasiveness of racial discrimination.

Emilie Smith, Ph.D., is Professor in Human Development and Family Studies and the College of Social Science Distinguished Senior Scholar at Michigan State University. Her work explores the intersection of prevention of problem behavior and the promotion of positive youth and family development. Her research draws upon family and community-based randomized trials designed to reduce youth violence, substance use, and foster positive youth development; with attention to issues of racial-ethnic identity, and sociocultural contexts.