The National Council on Family Relations (NCFR) has conferred its organization’s prestigious Fellow status to Sandra M. Stith, Ph.D, LMFT, Professor in the School of Family Studies and Human Services at Kansas State University. She is also the Program Director for their Marriage and Family Therapy Program.

Dr. Stith received her B.S. in Education from Oklahoma State University in 1970, her M.S.in Life Span Human Development from Kansas State University in 1982 and her Ph.D. in Marriage and Family Therapy from Kansas State University in 1986. Her clinical experience began with teaching in the K-12 public school system in Oklahoma, Ohio, and Wyoming. She was a Peace Corps volunteer in Venezuela and worked with Spanish speaking families in California. After her advanced degrees, she served as a family therapist and supervisor in Virginia and Kansas. She is currently a Licensed Clinical Marriage and Family Therapist in the State of Kansas, and an Approved Supervisor with the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy.

Dr. Stith’s scholarly contributions are plentiful. Her area of expertise is family violence and the treatment of intimate partner violence (IPV).  Her name is connected with numerous articles in several journals including the American Journal of Family Therapy, Contemporary Family Therapy, Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, Family Science Review, Family Relations, Journal of Family Psychotherapy and Journal of Marriage and the Family. She has also been involved as an author in books and journal special issues pertaining to family and domestic violence.

Her grants and contracts pertaining to her expertise on family violence extend over many years. She has been a critical link between NCFR and military families, who are advocating, researching and training with families in the military community. Her research area with violence in military families has been nationally recognized. She is recognized as an international expert in family violence and has given more than100 presentations. Her other professional activities include serving on the editorial boards of the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, Family Relations and the American Journal of Family Therapy. Dr. Stith continues to be a manuscript reviewer for many journals which speaks to her allegiance to bridge family social science and family therapy.

The National Council on Family Relations is the nation’s premier professional association for the multidisciplinary understanding of families. NCFR has a membership of more than 3600 family researchers, practitioners and educators.  For more information on the National Council on Family Relations or its scholarly publications, contact NCFR at 1-888-781-9331 or visit its website at www.ncfr.org.