The National Council on Family Relations’ (NCFR) has conferred its prestigious Fellow status on M. Elise Radina, Ph.D., CFLE, professor in the department of Family Science and Social Work, and associate dean of the graduate school at Miami University. She is also fellow, affiliate, and associate at Miami University's Scripps Gerontology Center, department of global & intercultural studies, and Doris Bergen Center for Human Development, Learning, and Technology, respectively.

Dr. Radina has made significant contributions to Family Science through research, mentoring, and leadership. Her scholarship is prominently in the area of family health with consultancies on funded grants and with several decades of published research on this topic, to include theoretical innovations in family gerontology. She is a widely recognized leader at the intersection of family and health and is renowned for her efforts in disseminating practical information on qualitative analysis to a broad audience. Dr. Radina's research agenda has afforded her grant funding serving as PI or co-PI on multiple projects, as well as invitations to an array of international and national conferences.

Dr. Radina is also an adept teacher with a diverse and comprehensive repertoire of courses taught, conducting presentations on what it means to teach qualitative research and, more so, qualitative research in family studies. Her teaching has earned her commendations, nominations, and awards. She has twice served as guest co-editor of special issues of the Journal of Family Theory and Review. She is the co-editor of two books, the 2018 volume "How Qualitative Data Analysis Happens", and an under-contract expanded edition of the same.

Dr. Radina is an accomplished administrator on her campus, leading efforts to recruit and retain graduate students from backgrounds and with identities that have been historically marginalized. She has seen the important role that faculty have in student admission and retention. Dr. Radina has adeptly identified times of crisis while also acknowledging the importance of resilience and underscores the imperative for campus leaders to cultivate a cohesive, cross-institutional community. She also foresaw structural changes and led the charge towards merging the Family Science program with the Social Work program graduating students with both a bachelor's degree in social work and eligible for licensure in the State of Ohio, and eligible to become provisionally certified as Family Life Educators. In fact, Dr. Radina and her colleagues collaborated to publish an article about their department's process in NCFR's Family Relations titled, "Uniting Two Disciplines: An Innovative Partnership between Family Science and Social Work," which encourages and influences partnership and collaboration across disciplines. Additionally, these efforts speak to the development and implementation of innovative curricula through the association of multiple disciplines (e.g., Family Science and Social Work). She also established a graduate certificate in child life, furthering students' path in becoming certified child life specialists.

Her contributions to NCFR are vast and consistent including her most recent work as the program chair of the 2023 NCFR Annual Conference. Prior to that undertaking, she served on the CFLE Advisory Board, chair of the Families and Health Section, Conference Program Committee, Fellows Committee, and as a member of numerous other NCFR committees and editorial boards. Not a year goes by without Dr. Radina contributing to the leadership of NCFR. Most impressively, she has maintained her research and service contributions while serving in upper administration for most of her career. The Fellows Committee agrees with her nominator who noted that, "Elise is enormously deserving of this honor because she has made a significant and broad impact on family science, which will continue to be felt for years to come."

NCFR Fellows are nominated by their peers and are selected by the NCFR Fellows Committee. Dr. Radina will be recognized as a new fellow at the 2024 NCFR Annual Conference, Nov. 20-23, in Bellevue, Washington.

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.