SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA — The National Council on Family Relations’ (NCFR) Board of Directors has appointed Tammy L. Henderson, Ph.D., CFLE, to be program chair for the 2021 NCFR Annual Conference, scheduled to be held in Baltimore. The program chair’s primary duties are to select the theme, identify the plenary speakers, and prepare the call for abstracts for a particular year’s conference.

Dr. Henderson is a professor in the Department of Family Consumer Sciences at Lamar University. Previously she was a faculty member at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and Oklahoma State University. She received her doctorate from Oregon State University, and her master’s and bachelor’s degrees from Louisiana State University. Dr. Henderson conducts research in the area of family policy, law, and diversity. She is the author of numerous research reports, translational briefs, book chapters, and articles in scholarly journals including Family Relations: Interdisciplinary Journal of Applied Family Science (FR).

Dr. Henderson is an established leader at NCFR, serving in many capacities including as chair of the Diversity Task Force, and as an elected member of the board, chair of the Family Policy Section, and member of the Elections Council. She has also served as a member of the editorial boards of Journal of Family Theory & Review, and FR.

Additionally, Dr. Henderson also has extensive experience as an educator, and as a consultant in the area of public health and medicine. One of the reasons the board is excited by her role as program chair is her unique combination of experiences across research and practice.

In her proposal, Dr. Henderson detailed how the 2021 conference could explore the intersection of family research, teaching, and practice, through the concepts of hope, happiness, resilience, and agency. The board was greatly impressed with her thoughtful presentation, writing that they “welcome the positivity and strengths-focused approach that [Dr. Henderson’s] proposal offers our membership to contemplate.”

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.