The National Council on Family Relations (NCFR) has conferred its prestigious fellow status on Abbie E. Goldberg, Ph.D., the Jan and Larry Landry University Professor at Clark University. She is also professor in the Department of Psychology, and director of Clark’s Women’s and Gender Studies program.

Her scholarship on LGBTQ parents and youth has been profoundly influential in Family Science research. She has been heralded as the leading researcher of diverse families—and, in particular, families whose identities encompass same-sex sexualities, and whose lives are characterized by systemic injustices related to gender, sexuality, and other axes of normativity. She employs qualitative methods and quantitative longitudinal dyadic methods.

Dr. Goldberg’s research brings families out of the shadows that have been hidden amidst normative patterns and beliefs, to encompass the experiences of trans youth and families, families formed through adoption and donor insemination, and bisexual parents, for example, with a focus on the complex experiences that these and other diverse families navigate during key life transitions (e.g., parenthood, school entry, divorce). Through this work, she interrogates  family processes and dynamics, with a focus on understanding family members’ experiences within the broader context of their lives. She continues to innovate to the field by contributing new insights into the diversity of family life, rather than simply extending current literature. She is foundational in conceptualizing dynamics of gender, sexuality, and identity as fundamentally relational and familial.

Dr. Goldberg’s impressive record of published work includes 150+ peer-reviewed articles, nine books (four as primary author, five as an editor), and numerous other publications. She has served on editorial boards for each of the three NCFR journals, in addition to 8 other journals. She is currently the deputy editor of Journal of Marriage and Family.

Dr. Goldberg’s cutting-edge Family Science work is multidimensional and interdisciplinary—deeply influential in sociology, education, health sciences, psychology. Her integration of teaching, research, and scholarship has meaningfully impacted youth and families. She has served the community at large as consultant on a myriad of projects, as well as legal advisory and expert testimony.

At NCFR, she has made significant and sustained contributions, most notably as the chair of the Feminism and Family Science Section, as well as serving across a number of search committees, and review boards. In recognition of her achievements, she has received two of NCFR’s Jessie Bernard Awards for Feminist Scholarship.

Dr. Goldberg earned her doctorate in clinical psychology, and master’s in psychology from University of Massachusetts Amherst. She has served as a faculty member at Clark University since 2005.

NCFR Fellows are nominated by their peers and are selected by the NCFR Fellows Committee. Dr. Goldberg will be recognized as a new fellow at the 2023 NCFR Annual Conference, Nov. 8-11 in Orlando, Florida, where she will also be a featured plenary presenter.

The National Council on Family Relations is the premier professional association for the multidisciplinary understanding of families. NCFR has a membership of nearly 3,000 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.