The National Council on Family Relations (NCFR) is proud to recognize Azucena (Suzie) Verdín, Ph.D., as the 2020 recipient of the John L. and Harriette P. McAdoo Dissertation Award, which provides support for the recipient to complete an approved doctoral dissertation with a focus on issues impacting ethnic minority families. Her paper is titled “Mothering While Brown: Latina Borderland Mothers’ Experiences of Epistemic Injustice.”

Dr. Verdín is a visiting assistant professor of child development/child life at Texas Woman’s University and a postdoctoral research associate at the University of North Texas, where she conducts research on the Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters. She earned her doctorate in human development and Family Science from the University of North Texas, and her Master of Education from Harvard University.

Dr. Verdín’s research interests are to promote the well-being of historically vulnerable children and adults through strengths-based developmental and family research that reflects a lifespan approach to growth and resilience; to develop and apply critical methodologies to examine the contextual factors leading to educational disparities for racial and ethnic minority families.

John L. and Harriette P. McAdoo, the namesakes of this award, made significant contributions to the scholarship on ethnic minority families, especially our understanding of African Americans' familial experiences.

Dr. Verdín was recognized for her achievement at a special Awards Ceremony during the 2020 NCFR Annual Conference on Friday, Nov. 13, 2020 at 5:15 – 6:15 p.m. CT.

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, visit the NCFR website at ncfr.org.