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NCFR members available to the media...areas of expertise, institution, background

Members of the media...
This Contact-an-Expert feature is intended as a convenient resource for you to locate expert researchers,  educators, and helping professionals who study, teach about, and serve families. These particpating NCFR members have agreed to inclusion in this media contact listing. All have advanced degrees and have been published in academic journals or presented at academic conferences.  Search using the "By Keyword" search function below or the "Filter by Category" box for areas of expertise.

NCFR members...
Guidelines for expert listing

Rosemary Blieszner

Rosemary Blieszner

Professor, Virginia Tech University
Ph.D., Penn State University, 1982
Specialty Areas: 
  • Adult Development & Aging
  • Family Relationships
  • Gerontology
  • Older Adults
  • Spirituality

Rosemary Blieszner received her Ph.D. from The Pennsylvania State University in Human Development–Family Studies with a major concentration in adult development and aging and a minor in sociology/social psychology. Her research has been supported by NIH and several foundations. She has published four books, with two more under contract, as well as nearly 100 book chapters and research articles in gerontology, family studies, psychology, sociology, and personal relationships journals. In 1997-98 she received the university’s Alumni Award for Teaching Excellence, in 2000 she received the Alumni Recognition Award from the College of Health and Human Development at The Pennsylvania State University, and in 2002 she was named Alumni Distinguished Professor, a position held by 10 faculty members at the university. She currently serves as editor of Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences.

Pauline G. Boss

Pauline G. Boss

Professor Emeritus, University of Minnesota
Ph.D., University of Wisconsin, 1975
Specialty Areas: 
  • Caregiving
  • Loss & Bereavement
  • Marriage & Family Therapy
  • Stress & Coping
  • Ambiguous Loss

Dr. Pauline Boss is an educator and researcher who is widely recognized for her groundbreaking research on what is now known as the theory of ambiguous loss.

Since 1973, Dr. Boss has studied ambiguous loss, and trained and worked with psychologists and counselors to help individuals and families who have experienced a life-altering ambiguous loss, often described as a frozen grief, recover their resiliency despite the on-going ambiguity. Drawing on her research and clinical experience, Dr. Boss is committed to working with families to develop meaningful strategies that help them cushion the pain, cope with ambiguous loss and move forward to live productive lives.

Preston Britner

Preston A. Britner

Professor, University of Connecticut
Ph.D., University of Virginia, 1996
Specialty Areas: 
  • Attachment-caregiving relationships
  • Child maltreatment prevention
  • Primary prevention
  • Single-system design evaluation
  • Youth mentoring

Preston A. Britner, Ph.D. is a Professor of Human Development and Family Studies at the University of Connecticut. He is Co-Chair of the UConn’s Public Engagement Forum, which leads the University’s outreach and public engagement efforts. He also holds joint appointments in Educational Psychology and the Ph.D. program in Public Health. Professor Britner is a University Teaching Fellow (the highest teaching honor at UConn) and was recognized by UConn’s AAUP chapter with the 2011 Service Excellence award for his professional contributions. He holds several editorial appointments and numerous administrative and elected positions at university, state, and national levels. He is Editor Emeritus of The Journal of Primary Prevention. He has published in areas that bring child development and parent-child relationship theory and research to applied settings, mostly geared toward the promotion of healthy interactions and the prevention of negative behavioral outcomes.

Andrew Cherlin

Andrew Cherlin

Professor, Johns Hopkins University
Ph.D., University of California at Los Angeles, 1974
Specialty Areas: 
  • Marriage
  • Divorce
  • Cohabitation

My research is in the sociology of families and public policy. I have published books and articles on topics such as marriage and divorce, children's well-being, intergenerational relations, family policy, and welfare policy. I am the principal investigator of the "Three-City Study," an interdisciplinary study of low-income children and their caregivers in the post-welfare-reform era. The study’s web site includes downloadable documents that describe the study and a searchable list of publications. The data from all three survey waves of our study are publicly available through Sociometrics and ICPSR.

I am also the author of a textbook in the sociology of the family, Public and Private Families: An Introduction (Sixth edition, McGraw-Hill, 2010); and a companion reader, Public and Private Families: A Reader (Sixth edition, McGraw-Hill 2010).

My most recent book is The Marriage-Go-Round: The State of Marriage and the Family Today (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009).

Joshua Coleman

Joshua Coleman

Ph.D.
Specialty Areas: 
  • Intergenerational relationships
  • Marriage & Family Therapy

Dr. Joshua Coleman is Co-Chair of the Council on Contemporary Families and is a psychologist with a private practice in the San Francisco Bay Area.

He has been a frequent guest on the Today Show, NPR, and The BBC, and has also been featured on Sesame Street, 20/20, Good Morning America, America Online Coaches, PBS Life Part 2, and numerous news programs for FOX, ABC, CNN, and NBC television. His advice has appeared in The New York Times, The Times of London, Fortune, Newsweek, The Chicago Tribune, Slate, Psychology Today, U.S. World and News Report, Parenting Magazine and many others.

He has served on the clinical faculties of The University of California at San Francisco, The Wright Institute Graduate School of Psychology, and the San Francisco Psychotherapy Research Group.

Philip Cowan

Philip Cowan

Professor, University of California, Berkeley
Ph.D.
Specialty Areas: 
  • Marital Quality
  • Children
  • Adaptation in middle & low income families
  • Fatherhood

Philip A. Cowan is Professor of Psychology Emeritus and Professor of the Graduate School at the University of California, Berkeley. He is co-director of 3 longitudinal preventive intervention projects with Carolyn Pape Cowan. Dr. Cowan served as Director of the Clinical Psychology Program and the Institute of Human Development at UC Berkeley. In addition to authoring numerous scientific articles, he is the author of Piaget with Feeling (Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, 1978), co-author of When Partners Become Parents: The Big Life Change for Couples (Erlbaum, 2000), and co-editor of four books and monographs, including Family Transitions (Erlbaum, 1990), and The Family Context of Parenting in the Child's Adaptation to School (Erlbaum, 2005).

Carolyn Pape Cowan

Carolyn Pape Cowan

Professor, University of California, Berkeley
Ph.D.
Specialty Areas: 
  • Marital quality
  • Children
  • Adaptation in low & middle income families
  • Fatherhood

Carolyn Pape Cowan is Professor of Psychology Emerita at the University of California, Berkeley where she is co-director of 3 longitudinal preventive intervention projects: Becoming a Family, Schoolchildren and Their Families, and Supporting Father Involvement. Dr. Cowan has published widely in the professional literature on family relationships, family transitions, and the evaluation of preventive interventions. She is co-editor of Fatherhood today: Men's Changing Role in the Family (Wiley, 1988) and The Family Context of Parenting in the Child's Adaptation to School (Erlbaum, 2005), and co-author with Phil Cowan of When Partners Become Parents: The Big Life Change for Couples (Erlbaum, 2000), which has been translated into 6 languages. Prof. Cowan consults widely on the development, training, and evaluation of interventions for parents.

William J. Doherty

William J. Doherty

Professor, University of Minnesota
Ph.D., University of Connecticut, 1978
Specialty Areas: 
  • Communities & Families
  • Fathers
  • Parenting
  • Marriage & Family Therapy

William J. Doherty is an educator, researcher, therapist, speaker, author, consultant, and community organizer. He is Professor and Director of the Marriage and Family Therapy Program in the Department of Family Social Science, College of Education and Human Development, at the University of Minnesota, where he is also an adjunct Professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health.

Bill is past president of the National Council on Family Relations, the nation's oldest interdisciplinary family studies organization. His awards include the Significant Contribution to the Field of Marriage and Family Therapy Award, the Margaret E. Arcus Award for Outstanding Contribution to Family Life Education, and the Outstanding Community Service Award from the University of Minnesota.

A popular speaker to lay and professional audiences, he has won several teaching awards in his career and is frequently interviewed by print, radio, and TV media on family issues.

Lawrence Ganong

Lawrence Ganong

Professor, University of Missouri
Ph.D., University of Missouri, 1977
Specialty Areas: 
  • Divorce
  • Family Obligations
  • Intergenerational Relationships
  • Remarriage
  • Stepfamilies

Lawrence H. Ganong, Ph.D., is Professor of Nursing and Human Development and Family Studies. Ganong has been at MU for nearly 30 years. He is a leading authority on remarriage and stepfamily dynamics, having conducted research on stepfamilies for over three decades. He has authored or co-authored seven books and over 180 articles and book chapters. Many of these publications were written with his wife and colleague, Marilyn Coleman. In addition to publishing in academic journals, Ganong has written for popular magazines and conducted many workshops about remarriage and stepparenting in the United States and Great Britain.

Ganong has a joint appointment between Nursing and Human development and Family Studies. His research interests are multidisciplinary. Consequently, he has published his research in the journals of several disciplines, including nursing, family studies, psychology, sociology, health education, and counseling.

Tammy Henderson, Ph.D.

Tammy Henderson

Associate Professor
Ph.D., Oregon State University, 1999
Specialty Areas: 
  • Family Policy, Law, and Diversity
  • Foster Care and Kinship Care Concerns
  • Diversity and Disaster Research Related to Older Adults
  • Grandparent Rights and Responsibilities
  • Instructional Approaches to Teaching Family Law and Policy

 

Dr. Tammy L. Henderson, Associate Professor in Human Development and Family Sciences at Oklahoma State University, conducts research in the area of family policy, law, and diversity. She completed her doctoral studies in Human Development and Family Sciences at Oregon State University and earned her other degrees from Louisiana State University. Previously, she was a faculty member at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, VA. As a family policy and law scholar, Henderson has published more than 32 articles and book chapters focused on grandparent rights and responsibilities, foster care, mentoring Black women, and diversity and policies. She also is conducting research on the impact of Hurricane Katrina on older adults, a critical analysis of mass media reports regarding Hurricane Katrina, and Alaska Native grandparents.