The National Council on Family Relations (NCFR) has conferred its prestigious fellow status on Ani Yazedjian, Ph.D., acting provost, and University Professor in the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences at Illinois State University. Dr. Yazedjian completed her doctorate and master’s degree in human development and family studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Dr. Yazedjian has contributed significantly to Family Science through her service, research, and leadership. Her early research contributed to ethnic identity development among adolescents. More recently, her scholarship, funded through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Healthy Marriage/Responsible Fatherhood initiative, has transformed the discipline through collaborative partnerships with local high schools. Through this initiative, trained professionals facilitated weekly group discussions about relationship education, job readiness, and financial literacy in schools for the purpose of developing adolescents’ life skills. This project also provided its graduates with free college credits or a summer job. Further, this project highlights the value and extent of family life education in support of adolescents’ personal growth and development.

As a leader in administrative roles among family health and policy professionals, she has benefited Family Science scholars nationwide. At NCFR, she has made profound and sustained contributions, most notably in her engagement with, and leadership of the Racial and Ethnic Diversity in Families Section. Under her leadership, the section thrived, and membership increased. In addition, Dr. Yazedjian exerts the effort to engage NCFR members, from developing a fundraiser for the creation of travel awards to co-sponsoring sessions, to making the elections process more equitable and expanding awareness, which only diversifies NCFR that much more.

Throughout Dr. Yazedjian’s professional tenure, she has risen through the ranks from assistant professor to associate professor, then to professor and to department chair, and then to associate provost, and now acting provost. And during this time, she secured over $7 million in external funds for research focused on adolescent parenting and romantic relationship development among teens and developed a curriculum centered on families in Southeast Asia. These were trailblazing efforts in which she created bridges and opportunities for students interested in Family Science.

This speaks to her professionalism, mentorship, research, teaching, and leadership. She has also spearheaded the process of making Human Development and Family Science a major as well as a degree-granting program at Illinois State University. Additionally, she developed an accelerated graduate program and an online graduate certificate. Her integration of teaching, research, and outreach has meaningfully impacted youth and families.

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

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.