The National Council on Family Relations (NCFR) has conferred its prestigious Fellow status on Adriana J. Umaña-Taylor, Professor in the School of Social and Family Dynamics and Foundation Professor and Executive Director, Latino Resilience Enterprise, at Arizona State University.

Dr. Umaña-Taylor earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology and her master’s degree in child development and family relationships at the University of Texas at Austin and her Ph.D. in human development and family studies at the University of Missouri-Columbia. She began her career in academia as an assistant professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2001. 

Dr. Umaña-Taylor is a major figure in the field of Latino adolescent adjustment because of her groundbreaking use of methodological advances and innovative culturally-informed theories to explore how ethnic identity develops over time and interacts with discrimination to affect adolescent risk and resilience.  She publishes 6-10 major articles per year in top tier journals and her cumulative publication record is staggering in its significance and scope. She is recognized as an expert research grants procurer, earning $3.7 million as a principal investigator and more than $12 million as a co-investigator. 

Dr. Umaña-Taylor makes extraordinary contributions to mentorship through her supervision of graduate and postdoctoral students and service as the Director of the Summer Research Experience for Underrepresented Undergraduates.  She also served as a mentor to the Young Scholars and Millennium Scholars Programs for the Society for Research on Adolescence. 

Dr. Umaña-Taylor has earned numerous teaching, research, and service awards, including earning the 2015 NCFR Marie F. Peters Award for her significant contributions to ethnic minority families.

Dr. Umaña-Taylor has a record of sustained significant contributions to NCFR. She has served on the Board, on the editor search committee for Family Relations, and as a search committee member for the position of Executive Director. She was formerly on the editorial boards of both Family Relations and Journal of Marriage and Families.  She routinely presents and presides at annual NCFR meetings.  Her contributions to family science extends to many other professional organizations as well.

The National Council on Family Relations is the premier professional association for the multidisciplinary understanding of families. NCFR has a membership of more than 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.