SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA — The National Council on Family Relations’ (NCFR) membership has elected Yan Ruth Xia, Ph.D., CFLE, as a member-at-large of the NCFR Board of Directors. Dr. Xia is a professor in the Department of Child, Youth and Family Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her research focuses on youth and families during socioeconomic transition and family migration, and she has passions for research, teaching, and outreach to advance the well-being of families.

Dr. Xia is a Certified Family Life Educator (CFLE), earned her doctorate in Family Science from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She teaches courses in Family Intervention and Fieldwork, Human Development and the Family, Child and Family Policy, Immigrant Families and Program Design and Evaluation in Human Services. Dr. Xia is the author of her own book, Chinese Adolescents in Social Transition, and is the author or co-author of many book chapters and journal articles of her own research.

NCFR has been Dr. Xia’s professional home for 25 years. She has served as a member of the Inclusion and Diversity Committee and the CFLE Exam committee, chair for International Section, and inaugurating mentor of the NCFR Mentoring Academy. She is the 2017 recipient of NCFR’s Felix Berardo Scholarship Award for Mentoring; the 2017 Outstanding Service Award; and the 2020 Jan Trost Award for International Family Studies.

In her candidate statement, she expressed that she would be honored to serve NCFR members if elected, writing: “I love working with communities. I am committed to helping achieve NCFR mission, promoting Family Science, and supporting NCFR members through collaboration and innovation.”  

Dr. Xia and the other newly elected leaders will assume their roles at the 2022 NCFR Annual Conference, planned for Nov. 16-19.

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.