The National Council on Family Relations (NCFR) has conferred its prestigious fellow status on April L. Few-Demo, Ph.D., professor and head of the Department of Human Development and Family Science at the University of Georgia. Dr. Few-Demo completed her doctorate in child and family development at the University of Georgia. She completed her master’s degree at Monterey Institute of International Studies in international policy studies. Prior to her appointment at the University of Georgia, she was professor and head of the Department of Human Development and Family Science at Virginia Tech.

Dr. Few-Demo has made a profound impact on the discipline of Family Science through her scholarship, leadership, mentorship, and service. She began her career asking the question if there was a place in Family Science for the integration of critical theories such as Black feminism and intersectionality, critical race theory, and queer theory. Critical and radical theory has been central to her work, leadership, and passion for Family Science. Her research critically examines social disparities and inequities as well as how individuals and families engage in decision-making processes toward resilience and well-being. Specifically, her research reflects a strengths-based examination of the interplay of relational and situational vulnerabilities and resiliencies as they relate to agency and personal power within the contexts of identity development, intimate partner violence, maternal incarceration, sexuality, and sexual health decision-making. Dr. Few-Demo also has written about the utility of critical theories such as Black feminist theory, intersectionality, queer theory, and critical race theories in Family Science. She contributes new knowledge to the discipline in her examination of vulnerability and resilience in the lives of African American adolescents and women. Additionally, her thinking and her approach is cutting-edge: analyzing race and power in the academy using critical family theories and intersectional feminist praxis.

Dr. Few-Demo’s theoretical work has been internationally and nationally recognized by colleagues, professional organizations, and publishers. In 2018, she was the recipient of the Alexis Walker Award, Wiley Prize in Family Science, which honors outstanding original scholarship in the field of family science that has been published in Wiley Publishers journals. The Groves Conference on Marriage and Family, an international family science organization, reviewed her body of work on intersectionality theory and selected her as its 2017 Sussman Award for Scholarly Contributions to Family Science recipient. In 2017, she was awarded the Virginia Tech College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences Excellence in Advising Award and was selected as one of Virginia Tech’s Graduate School’s Outstanding Mentor Award. The NCFR Feminism and Family Studies Section awarded her the 2017 Alexis J. Walker Award for Mid-Career Achievement in Feminist Family Studies. She was one of only two scholars to have won the NCFR Feminism and Families Section award, Jessie Bernard Outstanding Paper from a Feminist Perspective Award twice. She had the privilege of being selected as a co-editor of the 2022 edition of the Sourcebook on Family Theories and Methodologies, a Family Science literary tradition that is published about every 12-15 years and is edited by the most prominent scholars in the field.

As a leader in her department, Dr. Few-Demo brings her energy, her attention, and sensitivity to others. She handles challenging situations attentively, using data to identify options, and fostering understanding and cooperation through her approach. She develops helpful procedures that lead to desired outcomes and fosters collegiality and a sense of community within the department and across faculty and students. She is heralded as the embodiment of how Family Science scholars can contribute across a myriad of areas to shape the discipline to consider families as they actually are, in all their complexities, challenges, and constraints. She has mentored junior faculty and associate professors and in doing so, building up Family Science and Family Life Education. She invests in her students as a mentor and instructor, through her scholarly roles in the discipline, and contributions in service to the department, college, and university.

In her letter of recommendation to the NCFR Fellows Committee, Anisa M. Zvonkovic, Ph.D., writes, “There is no major handbook or review of the [family] field for which Dr. Few-Demo has not played a leadership role,” going on to specifically cite her work as a researcher, her multiple contributions as a guest editor for NCFR’s journals, and her many years of editorial board service for NCFR’s journals. At NCFR, Dr. Few-Demo has served in multiple elected and appointed positions, including the NCFR Board of Directors, in addition to sustained involvement in the annual conference program.   

NCFR Fellows are nominated by their peers and are selected by the NCFR Fellows Committee. Dr. Few-Demo 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.